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Irrsch — Rarachs - Flightless Hummingbirds

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Published: 2020-05-10 22:31:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 838; Favourites: 24; Downloads: 0
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Description From the logbook of the expedition to Maria Theresia Land as written by Petr August Hyřman z Brychtu, the 16th of June 1843 (translated from Czech):

The 16th of June 1843
Again we climbed the slopes of Shield Comenius, much to the dismay of Brekken who’s disagreement is often very vocal about the necessity to traverse the thick undergrowth of the forest, protesting occasionally about this not being mentioned in the contract and noting being here as nothing more than a seaman accustomed to the cold winds of the southern Atlantic. I and Bachrich however voted in Einigkeit as to not let the cages abandoned for too long and thus risk the possibility of a unnecessary death of the caught animals by hunger, cold or in the fangs of the "hejkals". We found a "rarach" in every cage and thus I am able to make some fast drawings before we let them go - a feat impossible otherwise as these small critters are what one might believe to be the embodiment of a wind-devil if there ever was one.  [...]


The Rarachs were a very common group of small birds on all but the most barren islands of Maria Theresia land. During his two expeditions in 1843 and 1847 respectively Hyřman registered and described 14 different species, almost all of which he mistakenly put into a single genus Efferidolon whereas today it is established that there were 22 different species classified in five different genera in three different subfamilies. However Hyřman correctly assumed their close relationship to Hummingbirds - according to his journals these small birds were behind the formation of his ideas about what he called the "automatic transformation under pressures" (Samovolná přeměna tlaky způsobená) from 1844 onwards - an idea discontinued by his death in the Revolution of 1848 but luckily not lost due to other great men of those days having the same ideas, most notably Charles Darwin.

Nowadays it is assumed that Hummingbirds arrived twice on Maria Theresia Land, the time scale is however unclear. The older wave was the one that probably led to the Rarachs, as assumed because these early Hummingbirds might still not be too dependent on nectar and could manage to survive on other food sources and because the second wave still retains flight in all species and is clearly much closer to the south American Hummingbirds.

On Maria Theresia Land 13 of the 22 species belonged to the subfamily Efferidolonae on the sketch above represented by Efferidolon carnivorus. These small birds occupied mostly the niche of shrews on the archipelago with three species occupying the niche of mice, foraging in the undergrowth of the islands for invertebrates and in the case of those three species for seeds and young leaves.

Of this subfamily the genus Apidolon (Efferidolon barbatus on the picture) and the entire subfamily Brevicaudidolonae with 7 species - here represented by Brevicaudidolon (formerly Efferidolon) sagittobeccus specialized on a different food source - on Maria Theresia Land there are not many flower species which blossom long and abundantly enough to sustain a large population of different hummingbirds (the lees of Ludmila Island and the northern cliffs of Mt. Šemík being the exception), however several groups of lichens adapted a remarkably similar system of reproduction in that they developed the production of a sugary substance similar to nectar in their sporocarps. These species of Rarachs adapted to this food source and several species show beaks adapted to certain lichen species. Although none of these lichens is able to produce so much of this "nectar" as plants, their abundance in the wet environment of the archipelago as well as the fact that the Rarachs, due to them not maintaining an energetically expensive flight, make them a lucrative source of energy.


The last two species of the Rarachs are the strange Pseudospinae - probably an earlier offshoot of the whole family only these Rarachs maintained flight. Both species are adapted for a nocturnal life competing for flying insects with several species of bats. Unlike them they use their large eyes and "whiskers" for locating prey. The Pseudospinae show several interesting adaptations convergent with other bird families - their wing and upper tail feathers have similarly to those of owls comb-like structures which reduce the sound caused by their flight - while hunting the flight movements of the Pseudospinae are similar to those of other birds - they seemingly glide soundlessly through the night - however they retain the flight abilities of hummingbirds which they use in incredible feats of air acrobatics and flight direction changes - while doing so the sound of their wings, silenced by their shorter broader wing shape and the feather structure, is not the "humming" of the Hummingbirds but a silent "whistling" which sound like a silent ghostly howl in the night. The Pseudospinae also forage for larvae in bark of trees and mask themselves as thorns of bushes during the day, for both of which they use their woodpecker-like lower tail feathers for anchoring.

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