Giant Cowbird
molothrus oryzivorus
Icteridae,Icterinae · Troupials
- Disc 2 · 2001 listed
- Disc 3 · 2006 listed
- Disc 1 · 2011 listed
The account
Description
Male 35.5-38 cm, female 30.5-33 cm. Black with purplish sheen. The male has a ruff of erectile feathers on the neck and nape. Iris red or yellow.
-
Male Disc 3 · 2006 -
Female Disc 3 · 2006
Each plate is labelled with the disc's own caption.
Where it was recorded
The discs' own checklists select Giant Cowbird at 4 localities.
- Angra dos Reis ANRB
- Reserva Ecológica Guapiacú RERB
- Serra dos Orgãos SRRB
- Serra dos Tucanos SDTC
How the map was made
The original program computed each red dot at display time from the locality's coordinates, using its map library and one of five base maps drawn for the screen widths of the day. That library's projection — an oblique rotation of the sphere about the map's own centre, 23.7°S 47.4°W — was read from the program and checked against the graticule the same program drew into the base maps: it reproduces every grid intersection to within about a pixel. The dots here use that projection on the 1280-pixel base map, with the coordinates the discs record. Nothing was placed by hand, no modern map data was used, and a place whose coordinate is incomplete, out of range or beyond the map's edge is listed rather than guessed.
The discs carried location maps only; none shows a distribution or range.
The account, continued
Voice
Call 'chek chek chek...', song a high screeched ,chriiiiiik rrik rrik rick rick rick' or similar (vocalization # 1).
Behavior
Forages in canopy of tall forest trees, or bushes and reed near rivers and lakes, mostly in small family groups.
Breeding
Parasitizes caciques and oropendolas.
Habitat and status
Rare, in primary and secondary rain forest, open forest, river edge forest, swamp forest and bushy campo.
Decoded from the disc's own bytes. Each part is shown under the heading the disc files it under, and the wording, spelling and punctuation are the author's.
Vocalizations
-
Song, September 8, 1992, Miguelito, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Recorded by Sjoerd Mayer.
Recording files on the disc
- 2699.mp3 Song, September 8, 1992, Miguelito, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Recorded by Sjoerd Mayer.
Across the three discs
The work was published on three discs — Disc 2 in 2001, Disc 3 in 2006 and Disc 1 in 2011. Where they differ, that is a difference between historical releases, and it is never merged away. The 2011 disc is not treated as correcting the earlier ones.
Which discs list this bird
- Disc 2 · 2001 — in this disc's bird list
- Disc 3 · 2006 — in this disc's bird list
- Disc 1 · 2011 — in this disc's bird list
How that was established
- Disc 2 · 2001
aux_nonzero;local_checklist_byte45_flag_1- Disc 3 · 2006
aux_nonzero;local_checklist_byte45_flag_1- Disc 1 · 2011
aux_nonzero;local_checklist_byte45_flag_1
The disc's own record fields that place the bird on its list: a non-empty entry in the species table, and the byte that marks it as selected on a local checklist.
Names by release
- Giant Cowbird molothrus oryzivora Disc 2 · 2001
- Giant Cowbird molothrus oryzivorus Disc 3 · 2006, Disc 1 · 2011
The account in the Disc 1 · 2011 revision
The 2011 Disc 1 revision carries this account text unchanged from the Disc 3 release.
The work's own taxonomy
The discs carried three parallel name schemes. All three are shown as recovered; none is a modern taxonomy and none has been updated.
| Scheme | Scientific name | English name | Family |
|---|---|---|---|
| WORLD | molothrus oryzivorus | Giant Cowbird | Icteridae,Icterinae |
| CLEMENTS | molothrus oryzivorus | Giant Cowbird | Icteridae,Icterinae |
| AOU_HM | molothrus oryzivorus | Giant Cowbird | Icteridae,Icterinae |
Source details
- Identifier on this site
- seb_species_0464
- Account identifier
- seb_account_0464
- Account number on the disc
- 464
- Source edition
- CD03 / 2006 package
- Original taxonomy scheme
- WORLD
- Structure status
- heuristic; decoded_account_text and segment JSON remain authoritative