The Snow Mountains robin (''Petroica archboldi''), also known as the Snow Mountain robin, is a species of

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 family

Petroicidae The bird family Petroicidae includes 51 species in 19 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called th ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to West Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Distribution and habitat

The Snow Mountain robin is only found in

Puncak Trikora Puncak Trikora (literally "Peak People's Triple Command") is a 4,730 or mountain in the Highland Papua province of Indonesia on New Guinea. It lies in the eastern part of the Sudirman (Nassau) Range of the Maoke Mountains. Behind Puncak Jay ...

and the Freeport McMoran Grasberg gold mine, both near

Puncak Jaya Puncak Jaya (; literally "Victorious Peak", Amungme: ''Nemangkawi Ninggok'') or Carstensz Pyramid (, , ) on the island of New Guinea, with an elevation of , is the highest mountain peak of an island on Earth, and the highest peak in Indones ...

. Public access into these areas are restricted. This bird occurs between 3,850-4,150

metres The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

in rocky slopes with no

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

s, since this bird doesn't occur on or near the tree line, where most other robin

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

live.

Characteristics

The Snow Mountain robin has slaty-grey

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

, darker

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces both lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-drag ratio, which compares the bene ...

, a white spot on its forehead, and, most prominently, a large crimson spot on the breast, which makes it easily recognizable.

Behaviour

Generally social birds, Snow Mountain robins live in small groups of a few individuals. They feed on

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 among the rocks on grassy slopes.

References

Petroica Birds of Western New Guinea Birds described in 1940 Taxa named by Austin L. Rand Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Endemic birds of Indonesia {{Petroicidae-stub