Reading 2B

COVERED IN SOFT, BLACK FEATHERS, the noble performer bows deeply to his audience.
From
the top of his head grow several long feathers that tap the ground as he begins his dance, This dancing
bird is Carola's parotia,just one of the fascinating and unique birds of paradise that live on the island of
New Guinea. What is the reason or the dance show? This male bird is attempting, to impress a row of
females that are watching him from a branch above.
Keeping the females' attention isn’t easy, so he really gives it his all. He pauses for dramatic effect, and
then commences his dance again. His neck sinks and his head moves up and down, head feathers
bouncing.He jumps and shakes his feathers until his performance attracts the attention of one of the
females—the one that will be his mate.
An Amazing Performance
In the dense and humid jungle of New Guinea is nature’s most absurd theater the very special mating
game of the birds of paradise. To attract females, males' feathers are costumes worthy of the stage. The
bright reds, yellows, and blues of their feathers stand out sharply against the green of the forest.It seems
that the more extreme the male’s costume and colors, the better his chance of attracting a mate.
Not only do most male birds of paradise have extremely beautiful feathers, they know how to use them..
Each species has its own type of display behavior. Some dance remarkably complex dances on the
ground, in areas that they have cleared and prepared like their own version of a dance floor. Others
perform their display high in the trees.
The male red bird of paradise shows off his delightful red and yellow feathers in a display sometimes
called a “butterfly dance.” He spreads and moves his wings intensely like some giant butterfly. The male
Carola’s parotia has at least six different dance moves. These include one in which he spreads out his
feathers like a dress in a move called the “ballerina dance.” While some birds of paradise perform alone,
others, like Goldie's birds of paradise, often perform together, creating an eye-catching performance that
female birds find impossible to resist. Hanging from nearby branches, male Goldie's birds prominently
display the clouds of soft red feathers that rise from their backs as they flap their wings with great energy.
Excited females soon arrive to choose the one that pleased them the most.
The Evolution of Color
These brilliantly colored birds of paradise have evolved over millions of years from ancient birds whose
feathers were dark and boring in comparison. Of today's 43 brightly colored birds of paradise species,
most live only on the island of New Guinea. These birds of paradise invite us to solve a mystery of
nature. It seems to be a contradiction that such extreme feathers and colors could have been favored by
the process of evolution.After all, these same brightly colored feathers that attract mates also make them
much more noticeable to predators and slow the birds down, making fleeing from those predators more
difficult. The answer lies in the safe environment in which the birds live, and a process of evolution
known as “sexual selection."
“Life here is pretty comfortable for birds of paradise. The islands unique environment has allowed them
to go to extremes unheard of elsewhere,” says biologist Ed Scholes. Under conditions, he says, “evolution
simply wouldn't have come up with these birds.” Fruit and insects are abundant all year in the forests of
New Guinea, and predators are few. The result is a perfect environment for birds.
Sexual selection has thus been the driving force in the evolution of bids of paradise. Freed of other
pressures, birds of paradise began to specialize in attracting mates. Over millions of years, they have
slowly undergone changes in their color, feathers and other talents. Characteristics that made one bird
more attractive than another were passed on and enhanced over time. “The usual rules of survival aren't as
important here as the rules of successful mating, " Scholes adds.
The diversity of New Guinea's birds also springs from its varied environments: from humid coastal plains
to high-elevation cloud forests, from swamps” to mountains rising as high as 5,000 meters (16,000 feet).
The landscape has many physical barriers that isolate animal populations,allowing them to develop into
separate and distinct species.
Bird Performers, Human Dancers
The people of New Guinea have been watching the displays of the birds of paradise for centuries “Locals
will tell you they went into the forest and copied their rituals from the birds," says anthropologist Gilian
Gilison of the University of Toronto, who lived among New Guinea tribes for more than a decade. At
local dance performances, now more tourist entertainment than true ritual,the painted dancers still evoke
the birds with their movements and beautiful costumes. “By wearing the feathers," Gilison says, ... you
capture the animals life force it makes you a warrior."
In the past, demand for the birds'beautful feathers resulted in a huge amount of hunting. At the peak of the
trade , in the early 1900s, 80000 skins a year were exported from New Guinea for European ladies
hats.However , surprisingly few birds die for these consumes nowadays. Ceremonial feathers are passed
down from generation to generation . Local people are still permitted to hunt birds of paradise for
traditional uses. However, hunters usually target older male birds , leaving younger males to continue
breeding.
There are more serious threats to the bird welfare. An illegal market in feathers still exists. Large farms
use up thousands of hectares of forest where birds of paradise once lived , as does large-scale industrial
logging.Oil prospecting and mining also present dangers to New Guinea’s wildest forests. Meanwhile,
human populations continue to grow.Land is owned by different local families whose leaders disagree
about which areas should be protected.
David Mitchell, a conservationist , is using local villagers to record where the birds display and what they
eat . He hopes not only to gather data, but also to encourage protection of the birds’ habitat. The strategy
seems to be working . “ I had come to cut down some trees and plane yams vines,” says Ambrose Joseph,
one of Mitchell’s farmers.”then I saw birds land there, so I left the trees alone.” For millions of years,
these impressive birds have danced to find their mates. They’ll keep dancing for as long as the forest
offers them a stage.

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COVERED IN SOFT, BLACK FEATHERS, the noble performer bows deeply to his audience.

The Evolution of Color

Bird Performers, Human Dancers

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