A lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds that compose the genus Menura, and the family Menuridae.
Taxonomy
The classification of lyrebirds was the subject of much debate after the first specimens reached European scientists after 1798. Based on specimens sent from New South Wales to England, Major-General Thomas Davies illustrated and described this species as the
superb lyrebird, which he called
Menura superba, in an 1800 presentation to the Linnean Society of London, but this work was not published until 1802;
in the intervening time period, however, the species was described and named
Menura novaehollandiae by John Latham in 1801, and this is the accepted name by virtue of nomenclatural priority.
The genus name Menura refers to the pattern of repeated transparent crescents (or "lunules") on the superb lyrebird's outer tail-feathers, from the Ancient Greek words μήνη mēnē "moon" and ουρά ourá "tail".
Lyrebirds are named because their outer tail feathers are broad and curved in a S shape that together resemble the shape of a lyre.
Systematics
Lyrebirds were thought to be
Galliformes like the broadly similar looking
partridge,
junglefowl, and
familiar to Europeans, reflected in the early names given to the superb lyrebird, including native pheasant. They were also called peacock-wrens and Australian birds-of-paradise. The idea that they were related to the pheasants was abandoned when the first chicks, which are
altricial, were described. They were not classed with the passerines until a paper was published in 1840, twelve years after they were assigned a discrete family, Menuridae. Within that family they compose a single genus,
Menura.
It is generally accepted that the lyrebird family is most closely related to the scrubland-birds (Atrichornithidae) and some authorities combine both in a single family, but evidence that they are also related to the remains controversial.
Lyrebirds are ancient Australian animals: the Australian Museum has fossils of lyrebirds dating back to about 15 million years ago.
Species
Two species of lyrebird are extant:
Description
The lyrebirds are large
passerine birds, amongst the largest in the order. They are ground living birds with strong legs and feet and short rounded wings. They are poor fliers and rarely fly except for periods of downhill gliding.
The superb lyrebird is the larger of the two species. Lyrebirds measure 31 to 39 inches in length, including their tail. Males tend to be slightly larger than females. Females weigh around 2 pounds, and males weigh around 2.4 pounds.
Distribution and habitat
The superb lyrebird is found in areas of rainforest in Victoria, New South Wales, and south-east
Queensland. It is also found in
Tasmania where it was introduced in the 19th century. Many superb lyrebirds live in the Dandenong Ranges National Park and Kinglake National Park around
Melbourne, the Royal National Park and
Illawarra region south of Sydney, in many other parks along the east coast of Australia, and non protected bushland. Albert's lyrebird is found only in a small area of
Queensland rainforest.
Behaviour and ecology
Lyrebirds are shy and difficult to approach, particularly the Albert's lyrebird, with the result that little information about its behaviour has been documented. When lyrebirds detect potential danger, they pause and scan the surroundings, sound an alarm, and either flee the area on foot, or seek cover and freeze.
Firefighters sheltering in mine shafts during bushfires have been joined by lyrebirds.
Diet and feeding
Lyrebirds feed on the ground and as individuals. A range of invertebrate prey is taken, including
such as
,
(both adults and larvae),
earwigs,
fly larvae, and the adults and
Caterpillar of
. Other prey taken includes
,
,
. Less commonly taken prey includes
,
Hemiptera,
,
, frogs, and occasionally
. They find food by scratching with their feet through the
leaf litter.
Mixing and aerating soil and leaf litter while scratching for food amounts to a form of ecosystem engineering, or farming; foraging by superb lyrebirds has been shown to thus create which nurture larger and more abundant prey.
Breeding
Lyrebirds are long-lived birds that can live as long as 30 years. They have long breeding cycles and start breeding later in life than other passerine birds. Female superb lyrebirds start breeding at the age of five or six, and males at the age of six to eight. Males defend territories from other males, and those territories may contain the breeding territories of up to eight females. Within the male territories, the males create or use display platforms; for the superb lyrebird, this is a mound of bare soil; for the Albert's lyrebird, it is a pile of twigs on the forest floor.
Male lyrebirds call mostly during winter, when they construct and maintain an open arena-mound in dense The Bush, on which they sing and dance
Vocalizations and mimicry
A lyrebird's song is one of the more distinctive aspects of its behavioural biology. Lyrebirds sing throughout the year, but the peak of the breeding season, from June to August, is when they sing with the most intensity. During this peak males may sing for four hours of the day, almost half the hours of daylight. The song of the lyrebird is a mixture of elements of its own song and mimicry of other species. Lyrebirds render with great fidelity the individual songs of other birds
and the chatter of flocks of birds,
and also mimic other animals such as possums,
and
.
Lyrebirds have been recorded mimicking human sounds
such as a mill whistle, a cross-cut saw,
,
and
,
fire,
rifle-shots,
camera shutters,
barking, crying babies, music, mobile phone ring tones, and even the human voice. However, while the mimicry of human noises is widely reported, the extent to which it happens is exaggerated.
Parts of the lyrebird's own song can resemble human-made
, which has given rise to the
urban legend that they frequently imitate video game or film sounds.
The superb lyrebird's mimicked calls are learned from the local environment, including from other superb lyrebirds. An instructive example is the population of superb lyrebirds in Tasmania, which have retained the calls of species not native to Tasmania in their repertoire, with some local Tasmanian endemic bird songs added. The female lyrebirds of both species are also mimics capable of complex vocalisations. Superb lyrebird females are silent during courtship; however, they regularly produce sophisticated vocal displays during foraging and nest defense.[National Film and Sound Archive: Sounds of Australia.]
Both species of lyrebird produced elaborate lyrebird-specific vocalisations including 'whistle songs'.
One researcher, Sydney Curtis, has recorded flute-like lyrebird calls in the vicinity of the New England National Park. Similarly, in 1969, a park ranger, Neville Fenton, recorded a lyrebird song which resembled flute sounds in the New England National Park, near Dorrigo in northern coastal New South Wales. After much detective work by Fenton, it was discovered that in the 1930s, a flute player living on a farm adjoining the park used to play tunes near his pet lyrebird. The lyrebird adopted the tunes into his repertoire, and retained them after release into the park. Neville Fenton forwarded a tape of his recording to Norman Robinson. Because a lyrebird is able to carry two tunes at the same time, Robinson filtered out one of the tunes and put it on the phonograph for the purposes of analysis. One witness suggested that the song represents a modified version of two popular tunes in the 1930s: "The Keel Row" and "Mosquito's Dance". Musicologist David Rothenberg has endorsed this information.
Status and conservation
Until the 2019–2020 Australian bushfire season, superb lyrebirds were not considered threatened in the short to medium term. Concern has since grown as early analyses have shown the extent of destruction of the lyrebird's preferred wet-forest habitats, which in less intense previous bushfire seasons have been spared, in large part due to their moisture content.
Albert's lyrebird has a very restricted habitat and had been listed as vulnerable by the
IUCN, but because the species and its habitat were carefully managed, the species was re-assessed to
near threatened in 2009.
The superb lyrebird had already been seriously threatened by habitat destruction in the past. Its population had since recovered, but the 2019–2020 bushfires damaged much of its habitat, which may lead to a reclassification of its status from "common" to "threatened".
Beyond this new threat are the long-term vulnerabilities to predation by
and
, as well as human population pressure on its habitat.
In culture
Painting by John Gould
The lyrebird is so called because the male bird has a spectacular tail, consisting of 16 highly modified
(two long slender
lyrates at the centre of the plume, two broader
medians on the outside edges and twelve
filamentaries arrayed between them), which was originally thought to resemble a
lyre. This happened when a superb lyrebird specimen (which had been taken from Australia to
England during the early 19th century) was prepared for display at the
British Museum by a
taxidermy who had never seen a live lyrebird. The taxidermist mistakenly thought that the tail would resemble a lyre, and that the tail would be held in a similar way to that of a
peacock during courtship display, and so he arranged the feathers in this way. Later,
John Gould (who had also never seen a live lyrebird), painted the lyrebird from the British Museum specimen.
The male lyrebird's tail is not held as in John Gould's painting. Instead, the male lyrebird's tail is fanned over the lyrebird during courtship display, with the tail completely covering his head and back—as can be seen in the image in the "breeding" section of this page, and also the image of the 10-cent coin, where the superb lyrebird's tail (in courtship display) is portrayed accurately.
Lyrebird emblems and logos
The lyrebird has been featured as a symbol and emblem many times, especially in New South Wales and Victoria (where the superb lyrebird has its natural habitat), and in
Queensland (where Albert's lyrebird has its natural habitat).
-
A male superb lyrebird is featured on the reverse of the Australian 10-cent coin.
-
A superb lyrebird featured on the Australian one shilling postage stamp first issued in 1932.
-
A stylised superb lyrebird appears in the transparent window of the Australian 100 dollar note.
-
A silhouette of a male superb lyrebird is the logo of the Australian Film Commission.
-
An illustration of a male superb lyrebird, in courtship display, is the emblem of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.
-
The pattern on the curtains of the Victorian State Theatre is the image of a male superb lyrebird, in courtship display, as viewed from the front.
-
A stylised illustration of a male Albert's lyrebird was the logo of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, before the Conservatorium became part of Griffith University. In the logo, the top part of the lyrebird's tail became a music stave.
-
Australian band You Am I's 2008 album Dilettantes and its first single, "Erasmus", feature a drawing of a lyrebird by artist Ken Taylor.
-
A stylised illustration of part of a male superb lyrebird's tail is the logo for the Lyrebird Arts Council of Victoria.
-
The lyrebird is also featured atop the crest of Panhellenic Sorority Alpha Chi Omega, whose symbol is the lyre.
-
There are many other companies with the name of Lyrebird, and these also have lyrebird logos.
-
"Land of the Lyrebird" is an alternative name for the Strzelecki Ranges in the Gippsland region of Victoria.
-
A silhouetted male superb lyrebird in courtship display features in the masthead of The Betoota Advocate.
See also
Further references
-
Attenborough, D. (1998). The Life of Birds. p. 212. .
External links
