Greater Bird-of-paradise

The greater bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea apoda) is a bird of the forests of southern New Guinea and the Aru Islands, famous for the golden plumes of the male that cascade from his flanks during courtship displays.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Greater Bird-of-paradise in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Reptilia lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Males gather in the trees at traditional display sites called leks. They raise their plumes, hang upside down and call loudly, while females watch and choose a mate. Females visit several males and often choose the same few, so a small number of males sire most of the offspring.

Sexual selection, the competition for mates that favors showy traits even at a cost to survival, was explained by Darwin. Alfred Russel Wallace studied birds of paradise in the Aru Islands in 1857 and brought specimens home to the West.

The plumes were fashionable in hats in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and hunting was heavy until trade restrictions. The species is not considered threatened today.

• Natural selection — sexual selection
• On the Origin of Species — Darwin's ideas