The species of the genus Parotia (Paradisaeidae) and their relationships (Contributions to Papuasian Ornithology No.3)

Abstract

The species of Parotia are reviewed and re-diagnosed, and their distribution and ecology summarized. Five species are recognized. These, in order of their apparent evolutionary relationships, are P. wahnesi, P. helenea, P. sefiIata, P. lawesii and P. carolae. Infra-specific variation in P. lawesii as assessed, and the races exhibita and fuscior reduced to synonymy. P. helenae, conventionally treated also as a race of P. lawesii considered specifically distinct on morphological and distributional grounds, extensions to its previously recorded range inl south-eastern New Guinea are given.

Differences in the structure of frontal featherings in adult males are the primary morphological characters separating the species. The terms supra-nasal tufts and forehead crest are introduced to define the feather-groups involved. Species-characteristic combinations of these feather groups are assumed to be correlated with slight but critical differences in displays. Those species in which frontal feathering is simple are considered primitive types, viz P. wahnesi and P. sefilata; those in which it is complex are thought to be derived, viz. P. caroiae.

From correlations between the various combinations of frontal feathering with the geographical disposition of the species and the recent (Pliocene-Pleistocene) environmental history of New Guinea, some introgressive hybridization between populations and the selection of recombinants may have occurred in Parotia and contributed to the evolution of the species.

Notes on arena behaviour in P. lawesii and on requirements for conservation are appended.