The Tanimbar megapode or Tanimbar scrubfowl (''Megapodius tenimberensis'') is a small

megapode The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large, chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae. Their name literally means "large foot" and is a reference to the heavy leg ...

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 the

Tanimbar Islands The Tanimbar Islands (; ), also called ''Timur Laut'' (literally, "North East"; ), are a group of about 65 islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia. The largest and most central of the islands is Yamdena; others include Selaru to the sout ...

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, ...

. It is sometimes considered to be 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 ...

of the

orange-footed scrubfowl The orange-footed scrubfowl (''Megapodius reinwardt''), also known as orange-footed megapode or just scrubfowl, is a small megapode of the family Megapodiidae native to many islands in the Lesser Sunda Islands as well as southern New Guinea and n ...

, ''Megapodius reinwardt''. It is a terrestrial bird the size of a domestic

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

, which is found in a range of forest and scrub

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s. It feeds on seeds, fallen fruit and terrestrial

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s. Like other megapodes, it nests in large mounds of sand, leaf litter and other debris where the heat generated by the decomposition of organic material serves to incubate the

eggs An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo begins to develop. Egg, EGG or eggs may also refer to: Biology * Egg cell, the female reproductive cell (gamete) in oogamous organisms Food * Eggs as food Places * Egg, Austria * Egg, Switzerland ...

References

* Jones, Darryl N.; Dekker, Rene W.R.J.; & Roselaar, Cees S. (1995). ''The Megapodes''. Oxford University Press: Oxford. {{Taxonbar, from=Q968178

Tanimbar megapode The Tanimbar megapode or Tanimbar scrubfowl (''Megapodius tenimberensis'') is a small megapode endemic to the Tanimbar Islands of Indonesia. It is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of the orange-footed scrubfowl, ''Megapodius reinwardt''. ...

Birds of the Tanimbar Islands

Endemic birds of Indonesia