Club-winged_manakin

Club-winged manakin

Club-winged manakin

Species of bird

The club-winged manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus) is a small passerine bird which is a resident breeding species in the cloud forest on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains of Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. The manakins are a family (Pipridae) of small bird species of subtropical and tropical Central and South America.

Quick Facts Conservation status, Scientific classification ...

Sound-making mechanism

The structures were first noted by P. L. Sclater in 1860, and the sound production adaptations were discussed by Charles Darwin in 1871[2][3]

Like several other manakins, the club-winged manakin produces a mechanical sound with its extremely modified secondary remiges, an effect known as sonation.[4] The manakins adapted their wings in this odd way as a result of sexual selection.[2] In manakins, the males have evolved adaptations to suit the females' attraction towards sound. Wing sounds in various manakin lineages have evolved independently. Some species pop like a firecracker, and there are a couple that make whooshing noises in flight. The club-winged manakin has the unique ability to produce musical sounds with its wings.[5]

Each wing of the club-winged manakin has one feather with a series of at least seven ridges along its central vane. Next to the strangely ridged feather is another feather with a stiff, curved tip. When the bird raises its wings over its back, it shakes them back and forth over 100 times a second (hummingbirds typically flap their wings only 50 times a second). Each time it hits a ridge, the tip produces a sound. The tip strikes each ridge twice: once as the feathers collide, and once as they move apart again. This raking movement allows a wing to produce 14 sounds during each shake. By shaking its wings 100 times a second, the club-winged manakin can produce around 1,400 single sounds during that time.[5] In order to withstand the repeated beating of its wings together, the club-winged manakin has evolved solid wing bones (by comparison, the bones of most birds are hollow, making flight easier). The solid wing bones, a result of sexual selection, are also present in female manakins, who do not benefit from the trait.[6]

While this "spoon-and-washboard" anatomy is a well-known sound-producing apparatus in insects (see stridulation), it had not been well documented in vertebrates (some snakes stridulate too, but they do not have dedicated anatomical features for it).

References

  1. [1]
    BirdLife International (2018). "Machaeropterus deliciosus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2018: e.T22701122A130270942. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22701122A130270942.en. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. [2]
    Sclater, P. L. (1860). "List of Birds collected by Mr. Fraser in Ecuador, at Nanegal, Calacali, Perucho, and Puellaro, with notes and descriptions of new species". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London: 83–97.
  3. [3]
    Darwin, Charles (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 65–66.
  4. [4]
    Bostwick, Kimberly. "From Feathers, a Violin". BirdScope. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Archived from the original on 2006-09-12. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
  5. [5]
    Zimmer, Carl (August 2, 2005). "A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
  6. [6]
    "How beauty might have evolved for pleasure, not function". The Verge. 19 May 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
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