Elliot's bird-of-paradise

Elliot's bird of paradise is a bird in the family Paradisaeidae, first described by Edward Ward in 1873, but which was later proposed to be a hybrid rather than a “real” species, an identity since confirmed by DNA analysis.

Elliot's bird of paradise
Illustration by John Gould
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Superfamily:	Corvoidea
Family:	Paradisaeidae
Hybrid:	Epimachus fastosus × Paradigalla carunculata
Synonyms
Epimachus ellioti Ward, 1873

History

Illustration by J. Wolf and J. Smith

Only two adult male specimens are known of this bird, held in the British Natural History Museum (BMNH) and the Dresden Natural History Museum, and presumably deriving from the Vogelkop Peninsula of north-western New Guinea. In 1930, Erwin Stresemann inspected both specimens and declared Elliot's Bird of Paradise to be an intergeneric hybrid between a black sicklebill and Arfak astrapia. Other ornithologists dispute this claim. Errol Fuller argues that the astrapia is a fanciful choice made with little supporting evidence, and that Elliot's Bird of Paradise is much smaller than the two proposed parent species. The specimens show a number of characteristics not present in either parent species, adding weight to the possibility of the specimens constituting a unique species. As recently as 2012, Julian Hume and Michael Walters suggested that it is likely the elusive bird is either rare or extinct. In 2024 a study which extracted DNA from the BMNH specimen confirmed that the astrapia parentage is incorrect, but revealed it to actually be an F1 hybrid between a long-tailed paradigalla and a black sicklebill.

References

• De Vos, Rick (2017). "Extinction in a Distant Land: The Question of Elliot's Bird of Paradise". In Rose, D.B.; van Dooren, T.; Chrulew, M. (eds.). Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 88–115. ISBN 978-0-23-117881-5.
• Frith, Clifford B.; Beehler, Bruce M. (1998). The Birds of Paradise. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-854853-9.
• Fuller, Errol. (1995). The Lost Birds of Paradise. Shrewsbury: Swan Hill Press. ISBN 978-1-85-310566-1.
• Hume, Julian P.; Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. ISBN 978-1-40-815725-1.
• Thörn, Filip; Soares, André E. R.; Müller, Ingo A.; Päckert, Martin; Frahnert, Sylke; van Grouw, Hein; Kamminga, Pepijn; Peona, Valentina; Suh, Alexander; Blom, Mozes P. K.; Irestedt, Martin (2024-06-08). "Contemporary intergeneric hybridization and backcrossing among birds-of-paradise". Evolution Letters: 1–15. doi:10.1093/evlett/qrae023.