Hoopoe
Hoopoe | |
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Eurasian hoopoe Madrid, Spain | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Bucerotiformes |
Family: | Upupidae Leach, 1819[1][2] |
Genus: | Upupa Linnaeus, 1758 |
Type species | |
Upupa epops (Eurasian hoopoe) Linnaeus, 1758
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Species | |
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Hoopoes (
Taxonomy
The
The hoopoe was classified in the
The fossil record of the hoopoes is very incomplete, with the earliest fossil coming from the Quaternary.[12] The fossil record of their relatives is older, with fossil wood hoopoes dating back to the Miocene and those of an extinct related family, the Messelirrisoridae, dating from the Eocene.[10]
Species
Formerly considered a single species, the hoopoe has been split into three separate species: the
The genus Upupa was created by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758. It then included three other species with long curved bills:[13]
- U. eremita (now Geronticus eremita), the northern bald ibis
- U. pyrrhocorax (now Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), the red-billed chough
- U. paradisea
Formerly, the greater hoopoe-lark was also considered to be a member of this genus (as Upupa alaudipes).[14]
Extant species
Common name | Scientific name and subspecies | Range | Size and ecology | IUCN status and estimated population |
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African hoopoe | Upupa africana Bechstein, 1811 |
South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and the southern half of the Democratic Republic of the Congo | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
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Eurasian hoopoe | Upupa epops Cabanis & Heine, 1860 Six subspecies
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Europe, Asia, and North Africa and northern Sub-Saharan Africa | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
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Madagascar hoopoe | Upupa marginata (, ) |
Madagascar | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
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Distribution and habitat
Hoopoes are widespread in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar.
The hoopoe has two basic requirements of its habitat: bare or lightly vegetated ground on which to forage and vertical surfaces with cavities (such as trees, cliffs or even walls, nestboxes, haystacks, and abandoned burrows[19]) in which to nest. These requirements can be provided in a wide range of ecosystems, and as a consequence the hoopoe inhabits a wide range of habitats such as heathland, wooded steppes, savannas and grasslands, as well as forest glades. The Madagascar species also makes use of more dense primary forest. The modification of natural habitats by humans for various agricultural purposes has led to hoopoes becoming common in olive groves, orchards, vineyards, parkland and farmland, although they are less common and are declining in intensively farmed areas.[15] Hunting is of concern in southern Europe and Asia.[18]
Hoopoes make seasonal movements in response to rain in some regions such as in Ceylon and in the Western Ghats.[21] Birds have been seen at high altitudes during migration across the Himalayas. One was recorded at about 6,400 m (21,000 ft) by the first Mount Everest expedition.[22]
Behaviour and ecology
In what was long thought to be a defensive posture, hoopoes sunbathe by spreading out their wings and tail low against the ground and tilting their head up; they often fold their wings and preen halfway through.[23] They also enjoy taking dust and sand baths.[24] Adults may begin their moult after the breeding season and continue after they have migrated for the winter.[25]
Diet and feeding
The diet of the hoopoe is mostly composed of insects, although small reptiles, frogs and plant matter such as seeds and berries are sometimes taken as well. It is a solitary forager which typically feeds on the ground. More rarely they will feed in the air, where their strong and rounded wings make them fast and manoeuverable, in pursuit of numerous swarming insects. More commonly their foraging style is to stride over relatively open ground and periodically pause to probe the ground with the full length of their bill. Insect larvae, pupae and mole crickets are detected by the bill and either extracted or dug out with the strong feet. Hoopoes will also feed on insects on the surface, probe into piles of leaves, and even use the bill to lever large stones and flake off bark. Common diet items include crickets, locusts, beetles, earwigs, cicadas, ant lions, bugs and ants. These can range from 10 to 150 millimetres (0.4 to 5.9 in) in length, with a preferred prey size of around 20–30 millimetres (0.8–1.2 in). Larger prey items are beaten against the ground or a preferred stone to kill them and remove indigestible body parts such as wings and legs.[15]
Breeding
Hoopoes are
Hoopoes have well-developed anti-predator defences in the nest. The uropygial gland of the incubating and brooding female is quickly modified to produce a foul-smelling liquid, and the glands of nestlings do so as well. These secretions are rubbed into the plumage. The secretion, which smells like rotting meat, is thought to help deter predators, as well as deter parasites and possibly act as an antibacterial agent.[28] The secretions stop soon before the young leave the nest.[23] From the age of six days, nestlings can also direct streams of faeces at intruders, and will hiss at them in a snake-like fashion.[15] The young also strike with their bill or with one wing.[23]
The incubation period for the species is between 15 and 18 days, during which time the male feeds the female. Incubation begins as soon as the first egg is laid, so the chicks are born asynchronously. The chicks hatch with a covering of downy feathers. By around day three to five, feather quills emerge which will become the adult feathers. The chicks are brooded by the female for between 9 and 14 days.[15] The female later joins the male in the task of bringing food.[24] The young fledge in 26 to 29 days and remain with the parents for about a week more.[19]
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Hoopoe eggs (Muséum de Toulouse)
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juvenile in nest box, Hungary
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Hoopoe on Bamboo by Zhao Mengfu, c. 1254–1322 (Shanghai Museum)
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Eurasian hoopoe in Israel; crest lowered. The hoopoe is Israel'snational bird.
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Hoopoe at Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand, India
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Hoopoe in Satchori National Park, Bangladesh
Relationship with humans
The diet of the hoopoe includes many species considered by humans to be
In folklore, myth and religion
Hoopoes are distinctive birds and have made a cultural impact over much of their range. They were considered sacred in
In the
The Hoopoe, known as the hudhud (هُدْهُد), also appears with King Solomon in the Quran in Surah 27 ٱلنَّمْل Al-Naml (The Ant):
27:20 ˹One day˺ he [Solomon] inspected the birds, and wondered, “Why is it that I cannot see the hoopoe? Or could he be absent?
27:21 I will surely subject him to a severe punishment, or ˹even˺ slaughter him, unless he brings me a compelling excuse.”
27:22 It was not long before the bird came and said, “I have found out something you do not know. I have just come to you from Sheba with sure news.
27:23 Indeed, I found a woman ruling over them, who has been given everything ˹she needs˺, and who has a magnificent throne.
27:24 I found her and her people prostrating to the sun instead of Allah. For Satan has made their deeds appealing to them—hindering them from the ˹Right˺ Way and leaving them unguided—
The connection of the hoopoe with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the Qur'anic tradition is mentioned in passing in Rudyard Kipling's Just So story "The Butterfly that Stamped".
In the pre-Islamic Vainakh religion of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan the hoopoe was sacred to the goddess Tusholi and known as "Tusholi's hen". As her bird, it could only be hunted with the express permission of the goddess's high priest, and even then only for strictly medicinal purposes.[33]
Hoopoes were seen as a symbol of virtue in
Hoopoes were thought of as thieves across much of Europe, and harbingers of war in
Tereus, transformed into the hoopoe, is the king of the birds in the
As emblem
The Eurasian hoopoe was chosen as the
Use in folk medicine
In Morocco, hoopoes are traded live and as medicinal products in the markets, primarily in herbalist shops. This trade is unregulated and a potential threat to local populations.[42]
In Manipur, one of the states comprising Northeast India, the hoopoe is still used by traditional Muslim healers in a variety of preparations believed locally to benefit a number of conditions both medical and spiritual.[43] Manipur abuts upon Myanmar and has been a cultural crossroads and melting pot of cultures for over 2,500 years.[44] Its traditional medicine may thus reflect influences from an unusually wide area, including not only the Indian subcontinent but also Central Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and even the further-flung regions of Siberia, the Arctic, Micronesia and Polynesia.[45][46] Ibopishak and Bimola record four Manipuri folk medicinal uses of the hoopoe which specify neither the body part of the bird used nor its method of preparation:
- as a tranquilizer
- in the treatment of abdominal pain,
- in the treatment of bladderdisorders
- in the "prevention of leprosy"[43]
More specifically, it is believed that if an essence (method of preparation unspecified) prepared from the bird is dropped into the eye, it will remove superfluous eyelashes and strengthen the memory.[43]
Furthermore the authors record the following local Manipuri beliefs concerning specific body parts of the hoopoe:
- that its meat prevents frequent urination;
- that its feathers have the insecticidal property of killing ants and fleas
- that its blood banishes fairies (jinn) and nightmares
- that its heart cures (unspecified) diseases
- that its claws can be used to cure speech disorders.[43]
While Ibopishak and Bimola are unable to find any discernible effect of hoopoe tissue alone upon the dissolution of kidney stones, they do note that their experiments reveal that hoopoe tissue potentiates the effects of the Manipuri medicinal plant Cissus javana, when employed to treat such calculi (local healers use bird and plant in just such a combination for this purpose). Since, however, there was no control used involving the tissues of any other bird species, it remains unclear whether there are any medicinal properties peculiar to hoopoe tissue deriving from a distinctive chemistry.[43]
In popular culture
A talking hoopoe named Almost Brilliant is a character in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle, first appearing in The Empress of Salt and Fortune.[48]
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The hoopoe was recorded as residing in Britain in the 18th century
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Art from Naumann's Natural History of the Birds of Central Europe, 3rd ed. of 1905
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Hoopoe art c. 1900
References
- ^ Leach, William Elford (1819). "Eleventh Room". Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (15th ed.). London: British Museum. pp. 63-68 [65]. Although the name of the author is not specified in the document, Leach was the Keeper of Zoology at the time.
- ^ Bock, Walter J. (1994). History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 222. New York: American Museum of Natural History. pp. 146, 245.
- ^ "Hoopoe Bird (Upupa epops) - Fun Facts with Pictures - Birds Fact". 2022-02-14. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
- ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. xxx.
- ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 247.
- ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
- ^ "Hoopoe". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- S2CID 6472805.
- ^ Feduccia, Alan (1975). "The Bony Stapes in the Upupidae and Phoeniculidae: Evidence for Common Ancestry" (PDF). The Wilson Bulletin. 87 (3): 416–417.
- ^ .
- . Retrieved 31 March 2017.
- ^ a b Olson, Storrs (1975). Paleornithology of St Helena Island, south Atlantic Ocean (PDF). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. Vol. 23.
- Systema naturaeper regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Vol. Tomus I (Editio decima, reformata. ed.). Holmiae. (Laurentii Salvii). pp. 117–118.
- ^ "Alaemon alaudipes - Avibase". avibase.bsc-eoc.org. Retrieved 2016-11-17.
- ^ ISBN 84-87334-30-X.
- S2CID 43360238. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2014-05-27.
- ^ Dau, Christian; Paniyak, Jack (1977). "Hoopoe, A First Record for North America" (PDF). Auk. 94 (3): 601.
- ^ ISBN 0-7922-4175-4.
- ^ ISBN 0-7099-2020-2.
- ISBN 0-906671-55-8.
- ^ Champion-Jones, RN (1937). "The Ceylon Hoopoe (Upupa epops ceylonensis Reichb.)". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 39 (2): 418.
- ISBN 978-0-19-562063-4.
- ^ ISBN 1-55297-777-3.
- ^ ISBN 0-89577-065-2.
- ISBN 978-1-4729-1010-3.
- .
- ISSN 0003-0147.
- PMID 16751538.
- S2CID 11447864.
- ^ Marshall, Amandine (2015). "The child and the hoopoe in ancient Egypt". KMT. 72 (26.1): 59–63.
- ^ Leviticus 11:13–11:19
- ^ Deuteronomy 14:18
- ^ Jaimoukha, Amjad. The Chechens: A Handbook. Page 119
- ^ Smith, Margaret (1932). The Persian Mystics 'Attar'. New York: E.P.Dutton and Company. p. 27.
- JSTOR 1260073.
- ^ Mall Hiiemäe, Forty birds in Estonian folklore IV. translate.google.com
- ISBN 0-271-01751-1.
- ^ Garth, Samuel; Dryden, John; et al. "Metamorphoses by Ovid".
- ^ Book 5, lines 6041 and 6046. Gower, John (1889). Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins: Being the Confessio Amantis. Routledge – via Project Gutenberg.
- ^ Kline, A.S. (2000). "The Metamorphoses: They are transformed into birds". Archived from the original on 2007-07-11. Retrieved 2009-02-17.
- ^ Erlichman, Erez (30 May 2008). "Hoopoe Israel's new national bird". Ynetnews. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
- ^ "Commerce illégal des oiseaux sauvages au Maroc: photo-reportage" [Illegal trade in wild birds in Morocco: photo-report]. MaghrebOrnitho (in French). 23 December 2013. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
- ^ a b c d e Ibopishak, S.O. and Bimola, D.A. Comparative Study of the Treatment of Kidney Stone with Upupa epops, Cissus adanta Roxb. and Cissus javana DC* in the Urinary Medium. Published Online: July 21, 2020 ISSN: 2684-4478 DOI :10.24018/ejchem.2020.1.4.8 https://ej-chem.org/index.php/ejchem/article/download/8/6 Retrieved at 11.11 on Thursday 28/4/22.
- ISBN 978-8170998532
- ISBN 978-8170998532
- ^ "Trade connection of Manipur with Southeast Asia in Pre British period Part 2 by Budha Kamei". Archived from the original on 8 July 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
- ^ "P-51 Mustang Survivors - MustangsMustangs.com". www.mustangsmustangs.com.
- ^ Wick, Jessica P. "Uncovering The Secrets Of A Fallen Ruler In 'Empress Of Salt And Fortune'". NPR. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
External links
- "Hoopoe" in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
- Ageing and sexing (PDF; 5.3 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
- Hoopoe videos, photos & sounds in the Internet Bird Collection
- Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. .
- Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. .