Would you believe that both of the two creatures in the picture above are birds? LOL
The top one is a male Bird-of-Paradise who’s displaying his plumage, albeit in a very bizarre way, to seduce the plainer-looking female.
Birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae of the order Passeriformes. The majority of species in this family are found on the island of New Guinea and its satellites, with a few species occurring in the Moluccas and eastern Australia.
Last fall, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Geographic brought the Birds-of-Paradise Project to the public with a gorgeous coffee-table book (published October 23, 2012), a major exhibit at the National Geographic Museum (opening November 1), a documentary on the National Geographic Channel on November 22, articles in the Cornell Lab’s Living Bird magazine and National Geographic magazine, and National Geographic Live lectures across the country.
Here’s the project’s trailer:
A big h/t to FOTM reader Ken!
~Eowyn