Eupodotis Afra
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The southern black korhaan (''Afrotis afra''), also known as the black bustard, is a species of bird in the bustard family,
Otididae Bustards, including floricans and korhaans, are large, terrestrial birds living mainly in dry grassland areas and in steppe regions. They range in length from . They make up the family Otididae (, formerly known as Otidae). Bustards are ...
. This small bustard is found in southwestern
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, from
Namaqualand Namaqualand ( Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River int ...
, south to
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
and east to
Grahamstown Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 75,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Gqeberha and southwest of East London. It is the largest town in the Makana Local Mun ...
. It prefers semi-arid habitats such as grasslands, shrublands and savannas where it can easily prey on ground-dwelling arthropods and eat seeds. It reproduces yearly in the spring and will lay about one or two eggs per breeding season. Numbers have declined rapidly as much of its habitat has been converted to agricultural land and remaining tracts are often fragmented. Due to this
habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...
, the species is considered vulnerable by the
IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...
.


Taxonomy

The southern black korhaan was one of the many bird species originally described by
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
in the 1758
10th edition 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...
of his ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
'', where it was given the
binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...
of ''Otis afra''. Formerly known as ''Eupodotis afra'', it is now classified as ''Afrotis afra.'' They belong to the bustard family, Otididae. It was previously thought that the southern black korhaan and the northern black korhaan were the same species (the northern black korhaan being a sub-species, ''E. afra afroaoides''). They are now classified as different species due to their disjunct ranges and habitats, and differences in plumage, vocalizations and social systems. They also have differences in their
mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...
. "Southern black korhaan" has been designated as the official common name for the species by the
International Ornithologists' Union The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", ...
(IOC).


Description

The southern black korhaan is a ground-dwelling bird with some
sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
. The male's main body plumage is of a checkered black and white with a black underbelly and neck. It also displays some white on the underwings, on the cheeks and in stripes over the eyes. The female, in contrast, has the whole of her head, neck and breast the same colour as her body, which is checkered brown and white. Both the female and the male have bright yellow legs. The male is slightly larger than the female. The male has a
wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...
of 27 cm (10.6 in) to 28 cm (11.0 in) and the female a wingspan of 25 cm (9.8 in) to 26 cm (10.2 in). The tail is about 12 cm (4.7 in) to 13 cm (5.1 in) long. The male's bill is larger with a length of 3.8 cm to 3.9 cm (1.5 in), while the female's is about 3.5 cm (1.4 in) long. The bill is of a reddish colour with a black tip. Lifespan averages 10 years.


Distribution and habitat

The southern black korhaan is endemic to southwestern South Africa, ranging from
Namaqualand Namaqualand ( Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River int ...
, south to
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
, and east to
Grahamstown Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 75,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Gqeberha and southwest of East London. It is the largest town in the Makana Local Mun ...
. It occupies about . It prefers open, semi-arid habitats such as shrub-lands and savannahs where it can easily prey on grass-dwelling arthropods, also grasslands adjoining marshland.


Behaviour


Vocalisation

Vocalisation has been described as a "continuous cackling sound". It is mostly the male that calls, as it vocalizes very often and very loudly. The call is a raucous "knock-me-down, knock-me-down".


Breeding

The southern black korhaan is a
polygynous Polygyny () is a form of polygamy entailing the marriage of a man to several women. The term polygyny is from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); . Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any other continent. Some scholar ...
species, which means males mate with multiple females. To attract females, males will display high flying. They breed in the spring. Females lays one or two eggs in a depression in the soil and covers them with strands of grass. The eggs are of an olive or brown colour with some dark black spots. Only the females provide
parental care Parental care is a behavioural and evolutionary strategy adopted by some animals, involving a parental investment being made to the evolutionary fitness of offspring. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal k ...
as they take care of the eggs and then raise the chicks.


Diet

This is an omnivorous species. Two-thirds of its diet is made up of
arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...
s, and it will eat termites, beetles, grasshoppers and ants. The rest of its diet is composed of plant matter, mostly seeds. It partakes in a mutualistic relationship with ''
Acacia cyclops ''Acacia cyclops'', commonly known as coastal wattle, cyclops wattle, one-eyed wattle, red-eyed wattle, redwreath acacia, western coastal wattle, rooikrans, rooikrans acacia, is a coastal shrub or small tree in the family Fabaceae. Native to A ...
,'' a species of
Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...
; the southern black korhaan benefits from the seeds as they are a readily available food source, and in return, disperses the seeds to good germination sites. The southern black korhaan will also ingest grit and other small rocks to help in digestion by assisting the grinding process in the
gizzard The gizzard, also referred to as the ventriculus, gastric mill, and gigerium, is an organ found in the digestive tract of some animals, including archosaurs (birds and other dinosaurs, crocodiles, alligators, pterosaurs), earthworms, some gast ...
. A study has also shown that two thirds of birds have nematode parasites in their intestinal tract.


Status and conservation

Recent studies have shown that the southern black korhaan's population has been decreasing lately, which has raised concerns about its conservation status. The species was once very common but it is now becoming rarer as its habitat is being fragmented. Hence, it has been deemed vulnerable by the
IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...
of threatened species since October 1, 2016. The primary threat to these species is the conversion of natural vegetation to agricultural lands as well as
aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. Nelu ...
. This has caused
habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological proces ...
and a reduction in available food sources. This reduction in habitat also means less suitable breeding grounds, which has not only affected breeding success, but chick and egg survival rates. Indeed, agricultural lands do not provide sufficient plant cover to protect them from predators such as the
Pied Crow The pied crow (''Corvus albus'') is a widely distributed African bird species in the crow genus of the family Corvidae. Structurally, the pied crow is better thought of as a small crow-sized raven, especially as it can hybridise with the Somali ...
. Other threats include climate change, human disturbance and diseases.


References


External links


Southern Black Bustard (''Afrotis afra'')
- Alive: Handbook of the birds of the world
Southern Black Bustard (''Afrotis afra'')
- Birdlife International
Southern Black Bustard vocalization
- e-Bird
Southern Black Bustard vocalization and distribution
- Xeno-canto

- VIREO (Drexel University) * ttp://www.oiseaux.net/birds/southern.black.korhaan.html Southern Black Korhaan (Outarde Korhaan)- Oiseaux.net {{Taxonbar, from=Q864381 southern black korhaan Endemic birds of South Africa southern black korhaan southern black korhaan Taxonomy articles created by Polbot