The orange-collared manakin (''Manacus aurantiacus'') is a
passerine
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
in the
manakin
The manakins are a family, Pipridae, of small suboscine passerine birds. The group contains 55 species distributed through the American tropics. The name is from Middle Dutch "little man" (also the source of the different bird name '' mannikin' ...
family. It is an endemic resident breeder in
Costa Rica
Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...
and western
Panama
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...
, where it is found in forests, secondary growth and plantations. It is a small, plump bird about long. Males have a black crown, mid back, wings and tail and an olive-green rump. The rest of the head, neck, breast and upper back are orange, and the belly is yellow. Females are olive-green with yellow underparts and resemble female
white-collared manakins. At breeding time, males are involved in
lekking
A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. It can also refer to a space us ...
behaviour on the forest floor. This is a fairly common species with a somewhat restricted range, and the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
has rated its conservation status as being of "
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
".
Description
The orange-collared manakin is, like its relatives, a compact short-tailed bird with a heavy hooked bill, orange legs and brightly coloured male plumage. It is typically 10 cm long and weighs 15.5 g.
The adult male has a black crown, wings and tail, and a black band across the midback. The rest of the head, neck, breast and upper back are orange, the rump is olive-green, and the belly is bright yellow.
The male wings are heavily modified, with the five outer primaries very narrow for their outer half, and the inner primaries thickened and bowed. This feature is shared only by the male White-collared and golden-collared manakins. The male's call is a clear ''cheeuu'', and the wings are used to make a loud snap like a breaking twig, as with other manakins, and various rustling and whiffling noises produced by the modified wings.
The female and young males are olive-green with a yellow belly. They are very similar to female white-collared manakin, but there is no range overlap. First-year males have a golden tinge to the breast.
Distribution and habitat
It occurs in the lowlands and foothills of the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
slope up to 1100 m, being replaced on the
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
slopes of tropical
Central America
Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...
by the closely related
white-collared manakin, ''M. candei'', and eastwards of its range to northwestern
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
by the
golden-collared manakin
The golden-collared manakin (''Manacus vitellinus'') is a species of bird in the family Pipridae.
It is found in Colombia and Panama. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and heavily degraded former forest.
Rep ...
, ''Manacus vitellinus'', of which was formerly considered a
subspecies
In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
. This is a bird of semi-open moist forest, tall secondary growth, shady plantations and gardens.
Ecology
Like other manakins, this species has a fascinating breeding display at a communal
lek. Each male clears a small patch of forest floor up to 120 cm across to bare earth, and leaps to and fro between thin upright bare sticks, giving a loud wing snap. When a female is present males jump together, crossing each other above the bare display court. The throat feathers are also erected to form a beard. The female lays two brown-speckled grey eggs in a shallow cup nest 0.5–2.5 m high in a horizontal tree fork. Nest-building, incubation for 18–21 days, and care of the young are undertaken by the female alone, since manakins do not form stable pairs.
The orange-collared manakin feeds low in the trees on
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...
and some
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s, both plucked from the foliage in flight.
Status
This bird has a somewhat restricted range but is fairly common. The population trend is thought to be slowly decreasing owing to the destruction of its habitat, nevertheless, the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
has rated the bird's conservation status as being of "
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
".
References
*Stiles, F. Gary & Skutch, Alexander Frank (1989): ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica''. Comistock, Ithaca.
Further reading
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1304324
orange-collared manakin
Birds of Costa Rica
Birds of Panama
orange-collared manakin
orange-collared manakin
Isthmian–Pacific moist forests