BIRDS OF PARADISE Paradisaeidae
As a family the Paradisaeidae has the most impressive set of birds in the world. Although they are but highly-modified corvids (Sibley & Ahlquist 1990), a detail that is hinted at by their raucous cries, the variety and beauty of the plumes, shields, streamers, wires, and plumage of the males is truly astonishing. The birds-of-paradise evolved in New Guinea, a land with abundant food but without mammalian predators. This permitted the development of a lek system with females selecting the most gaudy male; today, males do little but eat and display. Perhaps the most famous BOPs are the genus Paradisaea, of which the Lesser Bird-of-Paradise (both shots left: head close-up above and full body below) is a good example.
I have not yet photographed any bird-of-paradise ["BOP" in birder lingo] in the wild. Will Betz took the top photo in an aviary where the BOP was held in captivity. I think it is the only photo of a captive bird on this entire website. Steve Wilson photographed the wild displaying Lesser Bird-of-Paradise (left). But I did watch the latter bird — in its display tree at Baiyer River Sanctuary in Papua New Guinea, back when that was a reasonably safe place to visit — as can be seen from the self-timer photo below (I'm flanked by Steve Wilson, left, and Chris Spooner, right).
There are seven species in the Paradisaea, including such lovelies as the Blue Bird-of-Paradise P. rudolphi (inset right; art by Arthur Singer) and the Red Bird-of-Paradise P. rubra, both of which I've seen in display within their respectively limited ranges. I've chosen the Blue Bird-of-Paradise (right) as among my choices for the "best birds of the world" because it is truly spectacular; it has an unworldly "upside-down" display; and it is limited to a very small montane area of Papua New Guinea. As it turns out, I included four (4) BOPs in my choices for the "50 best birds in the world," more than any other family of birds.
Yet the standard Paradisaea birds-of-paradise are not my choices for the most spectacular BOPs. For those I pick the genera Parotia, Cicinnurus, Drepanornis, and Epimachus. These species have incredible displays. Those in the first two genera perform on carefully tended dancing grounds on the forest floor; the Drepanornis sicklebills have inverted poses high in a display tree while Epimachus sicklebills distort into unworldly poses. These displays are rarely witnessed by non-natives. For the forest-floor dancers, one must have a blind (which locals construct out of forest materials on the spot) and a lot of time and patience. The first films of dancing parotias were acquired in the 1990s and now highlight the BBC film Attenborough in Paradise (the best bird film I have ever seen). However, my friend and our Irian Jaya guide Will Betz, working with National Geographic, obtained this shot of a Carola's Parotia in full display (left), dancing in its "cape" on the forest floor. Alas, limits of this web media preclude seeing details shown in the original photo, such as the six thin wires being waved from the crown. You must see the BBC to observe the frenzy to which the male works himself up in this unbelievable performance.

Long tails or long plumes grace some of the most impressive BOPs. The very scarce and local Black Sicklebill (near right in another amazing Will Betz photo), another "top 50" bird, has an incredible tail to go with its machine-gun-fire vocalizations. The male King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise Pteridophora alberti (far right; artwork by Arthur Singer) has two unbelievable head plumes that quiver when it calls in a voice that sounds like radio static. His display is as energetic as any (and it is shown in the BBC film).

Among other impressive BOPS are

  • all of the five Astrapias whose long tail trains reach astonishing lengths
  • the sago palm swamp specialist, the Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise Seleucidis melanoleuca (again, see the Attenborough film), and
  • that specialty of Halmahera Island, Wallace's Standardwing Semioptera wallacii (another of my choices for one of the "top 50 best birds" of the world, and also featured in the BBC film)
In theory, male birds-of-paradise developed all these incredible ornaments and displays because of female sexual selection. In a land where babies can be raised and defended by females alone, a male is not needed to help feed the young or protect them. Females do these functions, and have evolved protective coloration to keep themselves inconspicuous. But they chose to mate with the most gaudy male available. Males, in turn, spend almost all their time trying to attract females. This has created incredible sexual dimorphism in the Paradisaeidae, and promoted rapid evolution in male plumages (Christidis & Schodde 1993).

In the gallery of three photos below, we can compare a female Victoria Riflebird (top) as she checks out a displaying male (bottom two) who is engaging in loud vocalizations and in a full wing-spread display.
These photos of Victoria Riflebird
are by Hans & Judy Beste. They were
taken in Queensland, Australia, where
the Bestes once operated a birders'
bed-and-breakfast named "Ptilornis"
after riflebirds, the only genus
of birds-of-paradise that occur
widely in eastern Australia.
Those BOPs in the genus Cicinnurus dance on courts that they clear on the forest floor. An absolutely beautiful photo of the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise C. magnificus on a display court is in Coates (1990); there are wonderful shots of King Bird-of-Paradise C. regius at a forest pool there also. I have marveled at both of those species, but the best landbird in the entire world, in my view, is the Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise C. respublica, limited in distribution to the islands of Waigeo and Batanta off the western tip of New Guinea.

A photo of life-mount specimen of Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise (right) from the American Museum of Natural History, New York, does not do it justice. In the field the blue bare skin on the crown is so vivid you could read by it at night, the deep scarlet back and velvet green breast are lush, and the curlicue tail gleams bright silver. Some of these outrageous colors were painted by William T. Cooper in his rendition of this species, a small vignette shown below:

Fortunately, you can see the display of Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise in the BBC film Attenborough in Paradise which was the first to obtain videos of this exotic creature. That film also delves into the history of western knowledge of these birds, which were once thought to exist only high above the earth, without feet, and living on the dew of the heavens!
Although I've emphasized the spectacular BOPs, and the extensive sexual dimorphism in these genera, there are primitive birds-of-paradise in which the sexes are similar. These are the five species of manucode (genus Manucodia; Trumpet Manucode sometimes separated as Phonygammus), two paradigallas (Paradigalla), and the Paradise Crow Lycocorax pyrrhopterus of the Molucca Islands. As would be expected when there is not sexual dimorphism, these species are monogamous and form pair bonds. This is quite unlike the promiscuous behavior of the rest of the family. 

Biochemical evidence (e.g., Sibley & Ahlquist 1990, Christidis & Schodde 1992, Nunn & Cracraft 199 , Cracraft & Feinstein 2000) shows that the manucode group are the only major lineage of birds-of-paradise that are a separate clade; they should probably be considered a subfamily of the Paradisaeidae. All the gorgeous, promiscuous BOPs are closely related; so much so that they may be better considered all the same genus. Under our current classification, there are many intergeneric hybrids known. This fact also suggests that all the famous BOPs are closely related despite their widely variable plumages.

New evidence, though, as clarified the status of some of the lesser known and more obscure species. Recent biochemical studies show that the three cnemophiline birds-of-paradise (genera Cnemophilus and Loboparadisea) are not closely related to BOPs at all (Cracraft & Feinstein 2000). I place them it their own family (Cnemophilidae). A more complete discussion of this new evidence is on that web page.

That same paper (Cracraft & Feinstein 2000) also showed that MacGregor's Bird-of-Paradise Macgregoria pulchra was actually a giant honeyeater, close to Melipotes. That rather startling finding makes completely good sense to me — the bird was not like any other BOP.

This means there are four fewer BOPs than had previously been thought. Frith & Beehler (1998), in their major review of this family, listed 42 biological species. [By contrast, Cracraft (1992) detailed about 90 "species" using the phylogenetic species concept.]  I favor the biological species concept, so removing the 3 cnemophilines and MacGregor's leaves 38 BOPs in the Frith/Beehler review.

Sibley & Monroe (1990) included two species of Melampitta among the birds-of-paradise. These round-bodied, short-tailed, long-legged, ground-dwelling birds look rather like all-black ant-pittas. Sibley & Ahlquist (1990) showed some preliminary biochemical evidence that at least Lesser Melampitta Melampitta lugubris was more closely related to the Paradisaeidae than anything else, but it was a sister group, not part of the BOP clade. Frith & Beehler (1989) do not include either Lesser Melampitta or Greater Melampitta M. gigantea in the birds-of-paradise family.  Others have placed the melampittas among logrunners and allies [Orthonychidae; e.g., Beehler et al. 1986] but the evidence is growing that these two mystery birds of New Guinea are neither logrunners, nor birds-of-paradise, nor even closely related to each other. Lesser Melampitta could be a babbler (see Frith & Beehler 1990) or in some other group (even its own family?) at the base of the corvoid tree (e.g., Sibley & Ahlquist 1990). Greater Melampitta may be related to pitohuis [in the Whistler family, Pachycephalidae] because it, like some pitohuis, seems to be poisonous to eat (e.g., see Frith & Beehler 1990). While I now elevate cnemophilines to family status, it is possible that there are other endemic New Guinea bird families yet to be defined. We don't know yet what the melampittas are, but it does seem that they are not BOPs.

Photos: The close-up of the Lesser Bird-of-Paradise Paradisaea minor in captivity was taken by Will Betz; the wild bird in display was photographed by Steve Wilson at Baiyer River Sanctuary, Papua New Guinea, on 25 Oct 1983. Will Betz took the almost unbelievable photo of Carola's Parotia Parotia carolae in full display at 5500' elevation at Crater Mt. Wildlife Management Area, Papua New Guinea, in Oct 1997; Will Betz also too the Black Sicklebill Epimachus meyeri photo at Crater Mt. WMA. Hans & Judy Beste captured on film the female and displaying male Victoria Riflebird Ptilornis victoriae at Julatten, Queensland, Australia, in 1983. I took the photo of three birders at the Lesser BOP tree at Baiyer River (self-timer) and the AMNH specimen of Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise Cicinnurus respublica (held by Rita Carratello). All photos © D. Roberson, except those © Will Betz, Steve Wilson, and Hans & Judy Beste, who hold those copyrights; all used with permission, all rights reserved.

Hans & Judy Beste are available to guide independent birders, small groups of birders and wildlife photographers in search of particular species during a visit to Australia, for a reasonable fee; just email them at the link.

Artwork: William T. Cooper painted the Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise; from Birds of Paradise & Bower Birds (1977) by Cooper & Forshaw (Collins). Arthur Singer painted the Blue Bird-of-Paradise Paradisaea rudolphi and the King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise Pteridophora alberti; from Birds of the World (1961) by Austin & Singer (Golden Press). Cooper and Singer hold those copyrights; vignettes used here under "fair use" doctrine.

Bibliographic notes

Family book: Rating vvvv+ (out of 5 possible stars)
Frith, C.B., and B.M. Beehler. 1998. The Birds of Paradise. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

This is a superb family book by two of the world's leading experts on the family. Both have studied BOPs in the field extensively, and this book is right up-to-the-minute on what is known about behavior and ecology. It is in the Oxford Press's Bird Families of the World series which is becoming far and away the best series of family books. This entry is a 600 page tome and outstanding in every way except one, which is why I give it 4 1/2 stars instead of 5: the plates (beautifully done by William Cooper) are painted  in "field guide" style (a few have wonderfully mossy branches on which to perch). Perhaps it is just me, but I would much prefer individual full-page plates of each bird in situ, showing habitat and behavior, rather than static field guide poses on a white background. In that sense Cooper & Forshaw has better art. But this text is full of maps, sonograms, and line drawings of behavior, almost making up for this one small deficiency. Their taxonomic conclusions are a bit more conservative than many recent authors (e.g., they do not split the riflebirds into quite as many species as most), but the text does contain detailed justifications for their decisions.
Family book: Rating vvv+  (out of 5 possible stars)
Cooper, W.T., and J.M. Forshaw. 1977. The Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds. Collins, Sydney.
For its time, this was a great book. I have treasured it, and each of the spectacular full-page paintings of the birds and their habitat is etched in my memory. The text was about as good as one could get at the time, but it is now outdated. For several species, for example, it was said that the "display was unknown." This was the state of knowledge when I first visited New Guinea in 1983. There we watched (at Bruce Beehler's study site) the "unknown" display of Buff-tailed Sicklebill (a spectacular hanging-upside-down performance with machine gun calls), a behavior since formally described by Beehler (1987); likewise, the behavior and displays of Pale-billed Sicklebill, a completely mysterious bird according to this 1977 book, is now of record (Beehler & Beehler 1986). So one now enjoys this book for the artwork.
Literature cited:
Beehler, B.M. 1987. Ecology and behavior of the Buff-tailed Sicklebill (Paradisaeidae, Epimachus albertsii). Auk 104: 48-55.

Beehler, B.M., and C.H. Beehler. 1986. Observations on the ecology and behavior of the Pale-billed Sicklebill. Wilson Bull. 98: 505-515.

Beehler, B.M., T.K. Pratt, and D.A. Zimmerman. 1986. Birds of New Guinea. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J.

Bock, W.J. 1963. Relationship between the birds of paradise and the bowerbirds. Condor 65:91-125.

Christidis, L., and R. Schodde. 1992. Relationships among the Birds-of-Paradise (Paradisaeidae) and Bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae), protein evidence. Australian Journal of Zoology 40: 343-353.

Christidis, L., and R. Schodde. 1993. Sexual selection for novel partners, a mechanism for accelerated morphological evolution in the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae).  Bull. Brit. Ornithol. Club 113:169-172.

Coates, B.J. 1990. The Birds of Papua New Guinea. Part II. Dove Publ., Ltd., Alderley, Australia.

Cracraft, J. 1992. The species of the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae): applying the phylogenetic species concept to a complex pattern of diversification. Cladistics 8:1-43.

Cracraft, J., and J. Feinstein. 2000. What is not a bird of paradise? Molecular and morphological evidence places Macgregoria in the Meliphagidae and the Cnemophilinae near the base of the corvoid tree. Proc. R. Soc. London B. 267:233-241.

Gilliard, E.T. 1969. Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds. London: Weindenfeld & Nicholson.

Nunn, G.B., and J. Cracraft. 1996. Phylogenetic relationships among the major lineages of the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae) using mitochondrial DNA gene sequences. Molecular Phylogentics and Evolution 5: 445-459.

Sibley, C.G., and J.E. Ahlquist. 1990. Phylogeny and Classification of Birds: A Study in Molecular Evolution. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.

Sibley, C.G., and B.L. Monroe. 1990. Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.

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Page created 6 May 1999, revised 27-30 Nov 2003