Food
Omnivorous. Mainly fruit but also small flowers, flower buds, leaves and stems, and some animals, including insects and other invertebrates, and small birds, their eggs and young.
Nest
Large, bowl-shaped, composed of long twigs, scraps of dry wood and broad leaves, lined with twigs and vine-tendrils, usually placed near the top of a bushy sapling in dense forest, from 1 - 10 m above the ground.
Eggs (Guide)
1 - 3, usually 2; slightly lustrous, plain cream or cream-buff; oval; about 39 - 44 x 25 - 30 mm. Incubation: 23 - 24 days; by female.
Young
Fledge in about 3 weeks.
Subspecies
Probably forms a superspecies with Green Catbird (Ailuroedus crassirostris) and sometimes considered conspecific.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
misoliensis (Gray, 1858) - West Papuan Is (Misool). Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Arfak Catbird (Ailuroedus arfakianus).
arfakianus A. B. Meyer, 1874 - Mountains of Vogelkop (Tamrau and Arfak), Onin Peninsula (Fakfak Mts), Bomberai Peninsula (Kumawa Mts) and Wandammen Mts, in north-western New Guinea. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Arfak Catbird (Ailuroedus arfakianus).
jobiensis Rothschild, 1895 - Bewani Mts, Torricelli Mts, Prince Alexander Mts, middle Idenburg R and Adelbert Mts, in northern New Guinea.
facialis Mayr, 1936 - Nassau Mts and Oranje Mts, in western New Guinea.
guttaticollis Stresemann, 1922 - Hunstein Range, Sepik R and Jimi R, in north-eastern New Guinea.
astigmaticus Mayr, 1931 - Mountains of Huon Peninsula, in north-eastern New Guinea.
melanotis (Gray, 1858) - Aru Is, and lowland Trans-Fly region of southern New Guinea.
melanocephalus E. P. Ramsay, 1883 - Mountains of south-eastern New Guinea eastern from Herzog Mts in northern and Mt Karimui (and possibly Kratke Mts) in south.
joanae Mathews, 1941 - Eastern Cape York Peninsula (Pascoe R and Iron Range areas south to Rocky R, in McIlwraith Range), in northern Queensland (north-eastern Australia).
maculosus E. P. Ramsay, 1875 - Wet tropics of northern Queensland from Big Tableland south to Seaview Range and Mt Halifax.
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
More... see more information (images, calls, videos etc)
(17Kb) © ? (
BirdLife International Species Factsheet