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Birds of New Guinea
Distribution, Taxonomy, and Systematics
By Bruce M. Beehler, Thane K. Pratt, Amy Hughes, Bruce Beehler, John Anderton PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2016 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4008-8071-3
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The New Guinea Region
Our region of coverage follows Mayr (1941: vi), who defined the natural region that encompasses the avifauna of New Guinea, naming it the "New Guinea Region." It comprises the great tropical island of New Guinea as well as an array of islands lying on its continental shelf or immediately offshore. This region extends from the equator to latitude 12° south and from longitude 129° east to 155° east; it is 2,800 km long by 750 km wide and supports the largest remaining contiguous tract of old-growth humid tropical forest in the Asia-Pacific (Beehler 1993a). The Region includes the Northwestern Islands (Raja Ampat group) of the far west — Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati, Misool, Kofiau, Gam, Gebe, and Gag; the Aru Islands of the southwest — Wokam, Kobroor, Trangan, and others; the Bay Islands of Geelvink/Cenderawasih Bay — Biak-Supiori, Numfor, Mios Num, and Yapen; Dolak Island of south-central New Guinea (also known as Dolok, Kimaam, Kolepom, Yos Sudarso, or Frederik Hendrik); Daru and Kiwai Islands of eastern south- central New Guinea; islands of the north coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG) — Kairiru, Muschu, Manam, Bagabag, and Karkar; and the Southeastern (Milne Bay) Islands of the far southeast — Goodenough, Fergusson, Normanby, Kiriwina, Kaileuna, Woodlark, Misima, Tagula/Sudest, and Rossel, plus many groups of smaller islands (see the endpapers for a graphic delimitation of the Region).
Politically, the island of New Guinea is bisected at longitude 141° east. To the west is Indonesian New Guinea (comprising Papua and Papua Barat Provinces). To the east of the line is the mainland portion of Papua New Guinea. Although this abrupt north-south boundary line is an artificial product of colonial-era claims, today this line, in effect, separates Asia (to the west) from the Pacific (to the east).
Indonesian New Guinea includes the western half of mainland New Guinea plus the islands of Geelvink (Cenderawasih) Bay, the Aru Islands, and the Raja Ampat Islands — all territory covered in this book. Papua New Guinea encompasses territory in the New Guinea region — the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and the islands of Milne Bay Province, as well as territory outside the Region and not covered in this book — the Bismarck and Admiralty Islands and the northernmost of the Solomon Islands. Thus, much of insular Papua New Guinea is not included in this treatment.
The New Guinea region does not include Seram, the Southeast Islands of Indonesia, the Kai Islands, the Torres Strait Islands, Long and Umboi Islands, New Britain, New Ireland, Manus, or the Solomon Islands. The northern Melanesian avifauna inhabiting these last six entities is admirably treated in Mayr & Diamond (2001) and Dutson (2011).
The postmodern political side of geographic names is problematic — is it Maluku or Moluccas? Nusa Tenggara or Lesser Sundas? Tagula or Sudest? Rossel or Yela? We have tended toward conservatism here (particularly because the main users of this type of work are people interested in the history of ornithology), as the older names have received more use in the literature and are, quite simply, better known and more widely used in the science. Our geographic gazetteer in the back of the book (Appendix) makes an initial attempt to present all the geographic names, so one can locate and identify both the new and old name here, even if only the "old" name appears in the text accounts. Some of the more prominent choices appear in our usage chart at the end of this introductory section.
With regard to seabirds, our treatment includes records within ca. 50 km of the Mainland coastline and ca. 25 km of any fringing New Guinea island. Also included are waters encompassed by embayments (the limit is a straight line between major projecting points on the Mainland). That said, we do not include any territorial waters of Australia (which in the Torres Strait approaches northward to the shores of the New Guinea mainland) or the Solomon Islands. We strongly encourage much additional seabird-watching in New Guinea's waters. These efforts should be timed to coincide with the annual spring and fall movements of these long-distance migrants and mainly should focus on the western and eastern extremities of the Region, where north-south water passages encourage concentrations of the birds where they can bypass the substantial east-west land barrier posed by mountainous mainland New Guinea.
New Guinea in Context
Aside from continental Australia, the only island larger than New Guinea is ice-capped Greenland. Among tropical islands, New Guinea is the largest and highest (it is larger and substantially higher than either Madagascar or Borneo) and still supports tropical glaciers in the far west of its high Central Ranges.
New Guinea is the geographic hub of the southwest Pacific — situated at the heart of an array of tropical island arcs that are home to a wonderful assemblage of bird species featured in this book. Australia lies just to the south. New Guinea and Australia share the Australian plate and thus the same tectonic history — New Guinea is the high, wet, and equatorial sector, whereas continental Australia is the low, dry, and temperate sector. To the west lie the Moluccas (Maluku) and Lesser Sundas (Nusa Tenggara) of Indonesia. To the north and northwest lie the Philippines, Palau, and the Mariana Islands. The Bismarck, Admiralty, Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands lie to the northeast and east, and the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji to the southeast.
New Guinea supports the Pacific's richest humid-forest avifauna. By contrast, Australia hosts the Pacific's richest savanna and dry-zone avifauna. Both rest atop the Australian continental craton, isolated by deepwater barriers from Sundaland to the west and from the Melanesian islands to the northeast and southeast. Whereas the differences between the avifaunas of New Guinea and Australia are mainly products of their distinct environments, the differences distinguishing New Guinea's avifauna from that of southeast Asia are biogeographic in origin. Wallace's Line, an ancient deepwater barrier, marks the eastern limit of many continental Asian bird lineages, separating the continental avifaunas of southeast Asia from those of Australia–New Guinea. In a similar manner, moving from New Guinea eastward into island Melanesia, one suddenly encounters oceanic avifaunas poor in many of the lineages that are widespread in the Australia–New Guinea region (e.g., Australasian robins, Australasian warblers, bowerbirds, and birds of paradise) yet distinctively rich in a subset of Australasian lineages that have exploded across this insular geography (e.g., monarchs and whistlers). Many bird groups that evolved on the Australian continent have not been very successful in colonizing oceanic island archipelagoes.
In sum, New Guinea is the Pacific's version of Andean South America — wet, tropical, cordilleran, and species-rich. And New Guinea's vast rain forests and montane cloud forests, like those of the Andean region, remain a treasure trove for research ornithologists. Here, future students of biogeography will come to address the distributional and systematic mysteries that are embedded in the species accounts that constitute the bulk of this book.
One thing that makes New Guinea different from cordilleran South America is its incredible cultural and linguistic diversity. Its many indigenous peoples live customary lifestyles and speak more than a thousand distinct languages (not dialects). These rural-dwelling people have had a long and close relationship with the birdlife, and village naturalists are often incredibly knowledgeable about the habits of these birds (Diamond 1966). In many instances, the astute guidance and cheerful assistance of local New Guinean naturalists have ensured the success of Western field ornithologists, especially in the period after World War II. Both authors can attest that their doctoral and postdoctoral field researches were immeasurably aided by the contribution of New Guinean field collaborators.
New Guinea's Bird Regions
New Guinea is geographically complex, and poses a challenge to the novice seeking to study its avifauna. It is hard enough learning the scientific and English names of nearly 800 bird species. Add to that the difficulty of learning where these species live in a mountainous world twice the size of California but with far fewer cities, roads, and other identifying features. Here, we employ a set of 15 standardized names for New Guinea's bird regions. These New Guinean bird regions articulate ornithogeographic zones, defined by areas of species or subspecies endemism and bounded by physiographic barriers that separate abutting ranges of sister forms. These are adapted from the bird areas highlighted in the first edition of the Birds of New Guinea field guide (Beehler et al. 1986) and influenced by Birdlife International's endemic bird areas as well as the World Wildlife Fund's Pacific ecoregions. They appear in the accompanying map (fig. 1), and are briefly described below, from northwest to southeast. Note that these updated bird regions are also used in the revised Birds of New Guinea field guide (Pratt & Beehler 2014).
Northwestern Islands/NW Islands (Raja Ampat or Western Papuan Islands). The islands of this region include Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati, Misool, Kofiau, Gam, Gag, and Gebe (plus other smaller islands). They are home to an array of Moluccan species found nowhere else in the New Guinea region, plus six endemics: Aepypodius bruijnii, Tanysiptera elliotii, Pitohui cerviniventris, Symposiachrus julianae, Cicinnurus respublica, and Paradisaea rubra.
Bird's Head (Vogelkop, Berau or Doberai Peninsula). This area features the Arfak and Tamrau Mountains, which host a number of montane specialties (some shared with the Bird's Neck): Charmosyna papou, Amblyornis inornata, Melipotes gymnops, Melidectes leucostephes, Sericornis rufescens, Parotia sefilata, Paradigalla carunculata, Astrapia nigra, and Lonchura vana. The region also includes substantial lowlands in its southern sector.
Bird's Neck. An expanse of rugged and isolated low mountains featuring fjords on the southern coast, this is a little-studied and physiographically spectacular region. Specialties shared with the Bird's Head include Amblyornis inornata (or an undescribed relative), Melipotes gymnops, Melidectes leucostephes, Parotia sefilata, and a Paradigalla not yet identified to species. Note that the Bird's Neck includes the Onin Peninsula (home of the Fakfak Mountains); the Bomberai Peninsula (home of the Kumawa Mountains); and the Wandammen Peninsula (home of the Wandammen or Wondiwoi Mountains), all of which are important areas of montane endemism, mainly at the subspecies level.
Bay Islands/Bay Is (islands of Geelvink Bay/Teluk Cenderawasih). This region features Biak and Supiori Islands (a matched pair) and Numfor, Mios Num, and Yapen Islands. Biak-Supiori and Numfor are oceanic islands and support endemic species of birds: Centropus chalybeus, Otus beccarii, Tanysiptera riedelii, Seicercus misoriensis, Symposiachrus brehmii, and others on Biak; Tanysiptera carolinae and Seicercus maforensis on Numfor; Micropsitta geelvinkiana and Myiagra atra on Biak and Numfor. Some of these endemic species also range out to small islands in the bay: Megapodius geelvinkianus, Ducula geelvinkiana, and Eos cyanogenia. Substantial and mountainous Yapen Island is a land-bridge island with some endemism at the subspecies level.
Northwestern Lowlands/NW Lowlands. Essentially the vast drainage of the Mamberamo basin, which includes the Mamberamo, Tariku, Taritatu/Idenburg, and Van Daalen Rivers, it combines lowland forest, swamps, and small but important north coastal ranges (Foja, Van Rees, and Cyclops). Specialties include Rallicula mayri, Psittaculirostris salvadorii, Amblyornis flavifrons, Ptiloprora mayri, Philemon brassi, Drepanornis bruijnii, and Parotia berlepschi.
Aru Islands/Aru Is. Composed of islands of uplifted coral with extensive mangrove channels, this region shares avian specialties with the Southern Lowlands. Eulabeornis castaneoventris and Dicaeum hirundinaceum are recorded in the New Guinea region only from the Aru Islands. Ptilinopus wallacii, a Moluccan specialty, is also found in these islands.
Western Ranges/Western Ra. This is the great high sector of New Guinea's main cordillera, with a number of summits exceeding 4,500 m, and several small glaciers on Carstensz Massif/Puncak Jaya (4,884 m). It includes (historically) the Charles Louis, Weyland, Nassau, and Oranje Mountains, now called the Sudirman (western) and Jayawijaya (eastern) ranges. Specialties include Anurophasis monorthonyx, Melionyx nouhuysi, Oreornis chrysogenys, Astrapia splendidissima, Lonchura teerinki, and Lonchura montana.
Border Ranges/Border Ra. Only marginally less impressive than the Western Ranges, the Border Ranges include great summits such as Mount Mandala and Mount Capella and share some montane specialties with the Western Ranges such as Melionyx nouhuysi, Astrapia splendidissima, and Lonchura montana.
Southern Lowlands/S Lowlands. This is a vast expanse of lowland rain forest that transitions to swamp forest and mangrove in the west and east, and seasonally flooded savanna in the central sector. Specialty species include Sericulus ardens, Chenorhamphus campbelli, Pseudorectes incertus, and Paradisaea apoda. In the far northwest, where the Southern Lowlands meet the Bird's Neck and the Northwestern Lowlands, one finds an ornithogeographic mixing zone where the ranges of many sister species and subspecies meet. That area would bear additional field study. Numerous species that seem to have originated in the Southern Lowlands have spilled eastward into the southern watershed of the Southeastern Peninsula, for instance, Casuarius casuarius, Talegalla fuscirostris, and Psittaculirostris desmarestii.
Trans-Fly. The southern bulge of New Guinea, this area's large expanses of monsoon woodland and savanna share many species with Australia. Endemics include Megalurus albolimbatus, Lonchura nevermanni, and Lonchura stygia. It is an important area for migratory waders as well as resident waterbirds and migratory waterbirds from Australia.
Sepik-Ramu. The eastern counterpart to the Northwestern Lowlands, this is the interior basin of two rivers — the Sepik and the Ramu — isolated from the Northwestern Lowlands by a series of low ranges near the Papua New Guinea–Papua border. It includes much lowland rain forest plus some fire-generated grassland patches and grassy marshlands of the Sepik. It also encompasses Papua New Guinea's North Coastal Ranges and the Adelbert Mountains. Its sole endemic is Sericulus bakeri.
Eastern Ranges/Eastern Ra. This bird region includes the central highlands of Papua New Guinea (Kaijende Highlands, Mount Giluwe, Mount Hagen, Kubor Mountains, Schrader Range, Bismarck Range, and Kratke Mountains). It extends westward to the Strickland River gorge and eastward to the Kratke Mountains, beyond which lies the Watut-Tauri Gap, which marks the northwestern terminus of the mountains of the Southeastern Peninsula. The Eastern Ranges are home to two endemics: Melionyx princeps and Astrapia mayeri.
Huon Peninsula/Huon Penin. This bird region contains a compact collection of high ranges (Finisterre, Saruwaged/Sarawaget, Cromwell, and Rawlinson) isolated from the Eastern Ranges by the broad lowland Markham and Ramu valleys. It is home to six endemic or near-endemic species: Amblyornis germana, Melipotes ater, Melidectes foersteri, Parotia wahnesi, Astrapia rothschildi, and Paradisaea guilielmi.
Southeastern Peninsula/SE Peninsula. The region comprises the Herzog and Kuper Mountains as well as the Owen Stanley and Wharton Ranges, the latter two substantial mountain chains with peaks to 4,400 m. The peninsula also includes coastal lowlands and some river basins. It is home to the endemics Tanysiptera danae, Amblyornis subalaris, Parotia helenae, Lonchura caniceps, and Lonchura monticola.
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Excerpted from Birds of New Guinea by Bruce M. Beehler, Thane K. Pratt, Amy Hughes, Bruce Beehler, John Anderton. Copyright © 2016 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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