Greater Bird-Of-Paradise

Greater Bird-Of-Paradise
オオフウチョウ
Character Data
Romaji		Ōfūchō
Debut		Kemono Friends (2015 Game)
Animal Data
Scientific Name		Paradisaea apoda
Distribution		Southwest New Guinea and Aru Islands, Indonesia
Diet		Omnivore
Avg. Lifespan		5 to 8 years
Read More		Greater bird-of-paradise
Conservation

Greater Bird-Of-Paradise

Pavilion

KF3

Nexon Game

Gallery

Greater Bird-Of-Paradise is a type of avian Friend that first appeared in the original Kemono Friends mobile game.

Appearance

In the new design she has yellow and white hair with the front part being yellow from the start, then gray and green on the right with a black stripe in the middle. She has two small, red bows on each side of her head and red wings. She has yellow eyes and wears a cropped red shirt with a brown sweater tied at the top of her belly. She has a black belt and a short red skirt. She has long tan colored socks and white shoes.

The old design of Greater Bird-Of-Paradise has huge, poofy yellow plumage surrounding her entire head. She wears a head dress with a gold crown, a blue gem, orange fluff, brown wings, and white hair. The front tips of her hair are green. She wears a red bikini top connected to shoulder guards and a necklace. She wears a sash on her lower body that is held on her hips by a gold waistband. Her tail is brown. She has dark grey arm sleeves with gold bands, which match in color with the leg bands on her lower body.

Series Appearances

Appearances In Kemono Friends Media

Media		Role

In Real Life

A male Greater Bird of Paradise eating offerings at Bali Bird Park. Photo by Andrea Lawardi, 2008.

The greater bird-of-paradise is the biggest member of the genus Paradisaea. It inhabits lowland and hill forests in southwest New Guinea and the Aru Islands, Indonesia. Like the majority of their relatives, they are frugivorous insectivores and primarily eat fruits, seeds, and insects. This species exhibits striking sexual dimorphism in its plumage. Males are vibrantly colored, featuring a prominent display of yellow tail feathers used in courtship. Their flank plumes are yellow at the base, transitioning to white streaked with maroon-red. Males also have an iridescent green face and an iridescent yellow-and-silver crown, head, and nape, while the rest of their body is predominantly maroon-brown. Females, in contrast, have unbarred but richly colored maroon-brown plumage. Both sexes share distinctive yellow irises and blue bills.

Male greater birds-of-paradise are polygynous, meaning females choose their mates based on traits that could benefit their offspring's genetic fitness. Since males don’t help with raising the young, females rely on courtship displays to evaluate the males' fitness. Male birds-of-paradise perform their courtship displays in trees above the ground, gathering in a lek or "court." While males may visit one another's display sites, which are typically close together, most of their displays occur at the shared court. Beyond their intricate dances, courtship behaviors include bill-wiping (pausing to brush both sides of the beak on a branch), leaf-tearing, hanging upside down from branches, and producing vocalizations. During courtship, males use eight different types of calls, often called "wauks," each corresponding to a specific part of their courtship dance. These calls are all highly unique and have various names (i.e. rising, rapid, wing pose, pump, baa, nasal, chugich) which describe the tempo, sound, or gesture of each movement.

Between 1909 and 1912, Sir William Ingram introduced a small population to Little Tobago Island in the West Indies to protect the species from overhunting for the plume trade. Although the introduced population survived until at least 1966, it has likely since been extirpated. The bird remains featured on various coins and banknotes of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar, commemorating its historical presence there.

Trivia

• During the appropriate season, observing male birds-of-paradise perform their mesmerizing courtship displays is relatively easy, as they consistently return to the same trees for this purpose. Dozens of males may gather at a single tree, with some using the same trees for generations.

• Sixteenth-century Europeans, captivated by the unmatched beauty of this species, believed it had descended directly from the Garden of God. They thus named it the "bird of paradise" or "bird of the Gods."

• These birds are known to sometimes mate with the smaller Raggiana bird-of-paradise.

References

1. "Cornell Lab Birds-of-Paradise Project".

2. "Greater bird-of-paradise Wikipedia article".

3. "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species".