About Paradisaea rubra Daudin, 1800
Paradisaea rubra Daudin, 1800, commonly called the red bird-of-paradise, is a large bird. Excluding ornamental plumage, it reaches up to 33 cm in length. Its body is primarily brown and yellow, with a dark brown iris, grey legs, and a yellow bill. Males have distinct ornamental features: an emerald green face, dark green feather pompoms above each eye, a pair of elongated black corkscrew-shaped tail wires, and a set of glossy crimson red plumes with whitish tips on either side of the breast. Including these ornamental red plumes, males measure up to 72 cm long, and these plumes require at least six years to fully develop. Females are similar in base appearance but smaller in size, have a dark brown face, and lack the ornamental red plumes that males possess. The diet of this species consists mainly of fruits, berries, and arthropods. This bird is an Indonesian endemic, restricted to the lowland rainforests of the Waigeo and Batanta islands of Raja Ampat, West Papua. It shares this range with another bird-of-paradise species, Wilson's bird-of-paradise. No hybridisation between these two species has ever been recorded.
