Not to be confused with Macropod, kangaroos and similar marsupials.
The megapodes, also known as incubator birds or mound-builders, are stocky, medium-large, chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae. Their name literally means "large foot" and is a reference to the heavy legs and feet typical of these terrestrial birds. All are browsers, and all but the malleefowl occupy wooded habitats. Most are brown or black in color. Megapodes are superprecocial, hatching from their eggs in the most mature condition of any bird. They hatch with open eyes, bodily coordination and strength, full wing feathers, and downy body feathers, and are able to run, pursue prey, and in some species, fly on the same day they hatch.[1]
From the Greek μέγας, (mégas = great) and πούς, (poús = foot).[2]
Description
Megapodes are medium-sized to large terrestrial birds with large legs and feet with sharp claws. The largest members of the clade are the species of Alectura and Talegalla. The smallest are the Micronesian scrubfowl (Megapodius laperouse) and the Moluccan scrubfowl (Eulipoa wallacei). They have small heads, short beaks, and rounded and large wings. Their flying abilities vary within the clade. They present the hallux at the same level of the other toes just like the species of the clade Cracidae. The other Galliformes have their halluces raised above the level of the front toes.[3]
Distribution and habitat
Megapodes are found in the broader Australasian region, including islands in the western Pacific, Australia, New Guinea, and the islands of Indonesia east of the Wallace Line, but also the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The distribution of the family has contracted in the Pacific with the arrival of humans, and a number of island groups such as Fiji, Tonga, and New Caledonia have lost many or all of their species. Raoul Island, a New Zealand territory and the main island of the Kermadec Islands, may also have once had a species of megapode, based on settler accounts.[4]
Behaviour and ecology
Australian brushturkey on its mound
Megapodes are mainly solitary birds that do not incubate their eggs with their body heat as other birds do, but bury them. Their eggs are unusual in having a large yolk, making up 50–70% of the egg weight.[5] The birds are best known for building massive nest mounds of decaying vegetation, which the male attends, adding or removing litter to regulate the internal heat while the eggs develop. However, some bury their eggs in other ways; there are burrow-nesters which use geothermal heat, and others which simply rely on the heat of the sun warming the sand. Some species vary their incubation strategy depending on the local environment.[4]
Although the Australian brushturkey was thought to exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, this was later proven false;[6] temperature does, however, affect embryo mortality and resulting offspring sex ratios. The nonsocial nature of their incubation raises questions as to how the hatchlings come to recognise other members of their species, which is due to imprinting in other members of the order Galliformes. Research suggests an instinctive visual recognition of specific movement patterns is made by the individual species of megapode.[7]
This cross-section of a megapode mound shows a layer of sand (up to 1 m thick) used for insulation, an egg chamber, and a layer of rotting compost. The egg chamber is kept at a constant 33°C by opening and closing air vents in the insulation layer, while heat comes from the compost below.
Megapode chicks do not have an egg tooth; they use their powerful claws to break out of the egg, and then tunnel their way up to the surface of the mound, lying on their backs and scratching at the sand and vegetable matter. Similar to other superprecocial birds, they hatch fully feathered and active, already able to fly and live independently from their parents.[5] In megapodes superprecociality apparently evolved secondarily from brooding and at least loose parental care as more typical in Galliformes.[8] Eggs previously assigned to Genyornis have been reassigned to giant megapode species. Some dietary and chronological data previously assigned to dromornithids may instead be assigned to the giant megapodes.[9]
Megapodes share some similarities to the extinct enantiornithes in terms of their superprecocial life cycle, though also several differences.[a]
Species
The more than 20 living species are placed in seven genera. Although the evolutionary relationships between the Megapodiidae are especially uncertain, the morphological groups are clear:[11]
Phylogeny of the Megapodiidae based a study by Chen, Hosner, Dittmann, et al. (2021).[12] The numbers of species are from the IOU list by Gill, Donsker, & Rasmussen.[13]
Garrdimalga mcnamarai – South Australia, Pleistocene
Human uses
In their native Oceania, indigenous peoples protect their nesting sites, as their eggs are considered to be delicacies.[14] Their eggs are about twice the size of chicken eggs and the yolks are roughly four times as massive.[15]
^ "These feather traces and the plumage in HPG-15-1 strongly suggest that members of the Enantiornithes were born fully fledged and capable of flight soon after hatching, somewhat resembling the super-precocial megapodes, the only group of neornithines in which neonates are similarly born fledged and capable of flight (Zhou and Zhang, 2004; Jones and Göth, 2008; Xing et al., 2017). Megapodes do not fly immediately, requiring nearly two days to dig themselves out of their mounds during which they preen off their feather sheaths and let their feathers dry (Jones and Göth, 2008). Similarly, hatchling enantiornithines would have had to wait until their feather sheaths were removed and their feathers dry before attempting flight. Although ecological and behavioural differences clearly exist between enantiornithines and megapodes (e.g., enantiornithines were arboreal and not mound-nesters), megapodes represent the precocial extreme in extant neornithines and thus the closest analogue for enantiornithine development, for which all evidence indicates a form of extreme precociality (Elzanowski, 1981; Zhou and Zhang, 2004; Xing et al., 2017)."[10]
References
^ Starck, J.M. & Ricklefs, R.E. (1998). Avian Growth and Development: Evolution within the altricial precocial spectrum. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-510608-4.
^Newton, Alfred (1911). "Megapode" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 75.
^ del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (1994). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 2: New World Vultures to Guineafowl. Lynx Edicions. ISBN978-84-87334-15-3.
^ ab Steadman, D. (2006). Extinction and Biogeography in Tropical Pacific Birds. University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-77142-7.
^ ab Starck, J.M. & Sutter E. (2000). "Patterns of growth and heterochrony in moundbuilders (MEgapodiidae) and fowl (Phasianidae)". Journal of Avian Biology. 31 (4): 527–547. doi:10.1034/j.1600-048x.2000.310413.x.
^ Göth, Ann & Booth, David T. (22 March 2005). "Temperature-dependent sex ratio in a bird". Biology Letters. 1 (1): 31–33. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2004.0247. PMC1629050. PMID 17148121.
^ Göth, A. & Evans, C.S. (2004). "Social responses without early experience: Australian brush-turkey chicks use specific visual cues to aggregate with conspecifics". Journal of Experimental Biology. 207 (13): 2199–2208. doi:10.1242/jeb.01008. PMID 15159424.
^ Harris, R.B.; Birks, S.M.; Leaché, A.D. (2014). "Incubator birds: Biogeographical origins and evolution of underground nesting in megapodes (Galliformes: Megapodiidae)". Journal of Biogeography. 41 (11): 2045–2056. doi:10.1111/jbi.12357. S2CID 53532720.
^ Worthy, Trevor H. (13 January 2016). "A case of mistaken identity for Australia's extinct big bird". theconversation.com.
^ O'Connor, Jingmai; Falk, Amanda; Wang, Min; Xiao-Ting, Zheng (3 January 2020). "First report of immature feathers in juvenile enantiornithines from the Early Cretaceous Jehol avifauna". Project: Vertebrata PalAsiatica. doi:10.19615/j.cnki.1000-3118.190823 – via researchgate.net. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Birks, S.M. & Edwards, S.V. (2002). "A phylogeny of the megapodes (Aves: Megapodiidae) based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 23 (3): 408–421. doi:10.1016/s1055-7903(02)00002-7. PMID 12099795.
^ Chen, D.; Hosner, P.A.; Dittmann, D.L.; O’Neill, J.P.; Birks, S.M.; Braun, E.L.; Kimball, R.T. (2021). "Divergence time estimation of Galliformes based on the best gene shopping scheme of ultraconserved elements". BMC Ecology and Evolution. 21 (1): 209. doi:10.1186/s12862-021-01935-1. PMC8609756. PMID 34809586.
^Microlivestock: Little-known small animals with a promising economic future. National Academies Press. 1991. p. 170-171. doi:10.17226/1831. ISBN978-0309042956. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^Cocker, Mark. "The Lava Birds" (PDF). Tourism Solomons. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Megapodiidae.
Mound-builders. Internet Bird Collection (ibc.lynxeds.com) (videos, photos, & sounds).
(photograph). Oriental Bird Club. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27 – via Internet Archive (archive.org).
June 01, 2023
megapode, confused, with, macropod, kangaroos, similar, marsupials, megapodes, also, known, incubator, birds, mound, builders, stocky, medium, large, chicken, like, birds, with, small, heads, large, feet, family, megapodiidae, their, name, literally, means, la. Not to be confused with Macropod kangaroos and similar marsupials The megapodes also known as incubator birds or mound builders are stocky medium large chicken like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae Their name literally means large foot and is a reference to the heavy legs and feet typical of these terrestrial birds All are browsers and all but the malleefowl occupy wooded habitats Most are brown or black in color Megapodes are superprecocial hatching from their eggs in the most mature condition of any bird They hatch with open eyes bodily coordination and strength full wing feathers and downy body feathers and are able to run pursue prey and in some species fly on the same day they hatch 1 MegapodeAustralian brushturkey Alectura lathami Scientific classificationKingdom AnimaliaPhylum ChordataClass AvesOrder GalliformesFamily MegapodiidaeLesson 1831GeneraEulipoa Megapodius Macrocephalon Leipoa Talegalla Aepypodius AlecturaBrushturkeys can often be found in parks or gardens Contents 1 Etymology 2 Description 3 Distribution and habitat 4 Behaviour and ecology 5 Species 5 1 Phylogeny 5 2 Taxonomy 6 Human uses 7 See also 8 Footnotes 9 References 10 External linksEtymology EditFrom the Greek megas megas great and poys pous foot 2 Description EditMegapodes are medium sized to large terrestrial birds with large legs and feet with sharp claws The largest members of the clade are the species of Alectura and Talegalla The smallest are the Micronesian scrubfowl Megapodius laperouse and the Moluccan scrubfowl Eulipoa wallacei They have small heads short beaks and rounded and large wings Their flying abilities vary within the clade They present the hallux at the same level of the other toes just like the species of the clade Cracidae The other Galliformes have their halluces raised above the level of the front toes 3 Distribution and habitat EditMegapodes are found in the broader Australasian region including islands in the western Pacific Australia New Guinea and the islands of Indonesia east of the Wallace Line but also the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal The distribution of the family has contracted in the Pacific with the arrival of humans and a number of island groups such as Fiji Tonga and New Caledonia have lost many or all of their species Raoul Island a New Zealand territory and the main island of the Kermadec Islands may also have once had a species of megapode based on settler accounts 4 Behaviour and ecology Edit Australian brushturkey on its mound Megapodes are mainly solitary birds that do not incubate their eggs with their body heat as other birds do but bury them Their eggs are unusual in having a large yolk making up 50 70 of the egg weight 5 The birds are best known for building massive nest mounds of decaying vegetation which the male attends adding or removing litter to regulate the internal heat while the eggs develop However some bury their eggs in other ways there are burrow nesters which use geothermal heat and others which simply rely on the heat of the sun warming the sand Some species vary their incubation strategy depending on the local environment 4 Although the Australian brushturkey was thought to exhibit temperature dependent sex determination this was later proven false 6 temperature does however affect embryo mortality and resulting offspring sex ratios The nonsocial nature of their incubation raises questions as to how the hatchlings come to recognise other members of their species which is due to imprinting in other members of the order Galliformes Research suggests an instinctive visual recognition of specific movement patterns is made by the individual species of megapode 7 This cross section of a megapode mound shows a layer of sand up to 1 m thick used for insulation an egg chamber and a layer of rotting compost The egg chamber is kept at a constant 33 C by opening and closing air vents in the insulation layer while heat comes from the compost below Megapode chicks do not have an egg tooth they use their powerful claws to break out of the egg and then tunnel their way up to the surface of the mound lying on their backs and scratching at the sand and vegetable matter Similar to other superprecocial birds they hatch fully feathered and active already able to fly and live independently from their parents 5 In megapodes superprecociality apparently evolved secondarily from brooding and at least loose parental care as more typical in Galliformes 8 Eggs previously assigned to Genyornis have been reassigned to giant megapode species Some dietary and chronological data previously assigned to dromornithids may instead be assigned to the giant megapodes 9 Megapodes share some similarities to the extinct enantiornithes in terms of their superprecocial life cycle though also several differences a Species EditThe more than 20 living species are placed in seven genera Although the evolutionary relationships between the Megapodiidae are especially uncertain the morphological groups are clear 11 Phylogeny Edit Megapodiidae Macrocephalon maleoEulipoa Moluccan megapodeMegapodius scrubfowl 12 species Leipoa malleefowlTalegalla brushturkeys 3 species Alectura Australian brushturkeyAepypodius brushturkeys 2 species Phylogeny of the Megapodiidae based a study by Chen Hosner Dittmann et al 2021 12 The numbers of species are from the IOU list by Gill Donsker amp Rasmussen 13 Taxonomy Edit Genus Mwalau Worthy et al 2015 Mwalau walterlinii Worthy et al 2015 Vanuatu Genus Ngawupodius Boles amp Ivison 1999 Ngawupodius minya Boles amp Ivison 1999 Scrubfowl group Genus Macrocephalon Maleo Macrocephalon maleo Genus Eulipoa sometimes included in Megapodius Moluccan megapode Eulipoa wallacei Genus Megapodius Tongan megapode Megapodius pritchardii Micronesian megapode Megapodius laperouse Marianas Island megapode Megapodius laperouse laperouse Palau Island megapode Megapodius laperouse senex Nicobar megapode Megapodius nicobariensis Philippine megapode Megapodius cumingii Sula megapode Megapodius bernsteinii Tanimbar megapode Megapodius tenimberensis Dusky megapode Megapodius freycinet Forsten s megapode Megapodius freycinet forstenii Biak scrubfowl Megapodius geelvinkianus Melanesian megapode Megapodius eremita Vanuatu megapode Megapodius layardi New Guinea scrubfowl Megapodius decollatus Orange footed scrubfowl Megapodius reinwardt Pile builder scrubfowl Megapodius molistructor Balouet amp Olson 1989 Viti Levu scrubfowl Megapodius amissus Worthy 2000 Consumed scrubfowl Megapodius alimentum Steatman 1989a M andamanensis Walter 1980 nomen dubium oospecies M burnabyi Gray 1861 nomen dubium oospecies Raoul Island scrubfowl M sp Eua scrubfowl small footed megapode M sp Lifuka scrubfowl M sp Stout Tongan megapode M sp Large Vanuatu megapode M sp Large Solomon Islands M sp New Caledonia megapode M sp Loyalty megapode M sp New Ireland scrubfowl large Bismarck s megapode M sp Malleefowl group Genus Leipoa Malleefowl Leipoa ocellata Brushturkey group Genus Alectura Australian brushturkey Alectura lathami Genus Aepypodius Wattled brushturkey Aepypodius arfakianus Waigeo brushturkey Aepypodius bruijnii Genus Talegalla Red billed brushturkey Talegalla cuvieri Black billed brushturkey Talegalla fuscirostris Collared brushturkey Talegalla jobiensis Genus Progura Progura gallinacea Queensland Pleistocene Progura campestris South Australia Pleistocene Genus Latagallina Latagallina naracoortensis formerly Progura naracoortensis New South Wales South Australia Pleistocene Latagallina olsoni South Australia Pleistocene Incertae sedis Genus Garrdimalga Garrdimalga mcnamarai South Australia PleistoceneHuman uses EditIn their native Oceania indigenous peoples protect their nesting sites as their eggs are considered to be delicacies 14 Their eggs are about twice the size of chicken eggs and the yolks are roughly four times as massive 15 See also EditList of recently extinct birds Late Quaternary prehistoric birds List of fossil bird generaFootnotes Edit These feather traces and the plumage in HPG 15 1 strongly suggest that members of the Enantiornithes were born fully fledged and capable of flight soon after hatching somewhat resembling the super precocial megapodes the only group of neornithines in which neonates are similarly born fledged and capable of flight Zhou and Zhang 2004 Jones and Goth 2008 Xing et al 2017 Megapodes do not fly immediately requiring nearly two days to dig themselves out of their mounds during which they preen off their feather sheaths and let their feathers dry Jones and Goth 2008 Similarly hatchling enantiornithines would have had to wait until their feather sheaths were removed and their feathers dry before attempting flight Although ecological and behavioural differences clearly exist between enantiornithines and megapodes e g enantiornithines were arboreal and not mound nesters megapodes represent the precocial extreme in extant neornithines and thus the closest analogue for enantiornithine development for which all evidence indicates a form of extreme precociality Elzanowski 1981 Zhou and Zhang 2004 Xing et al 2017 10 References Edit Starck J M amp Ricklefs R E 1998 Avian Growth and Development Evolution within the altricial precocial spectrum New York NY Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 510608 4 Newton Alfred 1911 Megapode In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 18 11th ed Cambridge University Press p 75 del Hoyo J Elliott A Sargatal J 1994 Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol 2 New World Vultures to Guineafowl Lynx Edicions ISBN 978 84 87334 15 3 a b Steadman D 2006 Extinction and Biogeography in Tropical Pacific Birds University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 77142 7 a b Starck J M amp Sutter E 2000 Patterns of growth and heterochrony in moundbuilders MEgapodiidae and fowl Phasianidae Journal of Avian Biology 31 4 527 547 doi 10 1034 j 1600 048x 2000 310413 x Goth Ann amp Booth David T 22 March 2005 Temperature dependent sex ratio in a bird Biology Letters 1 1 31 33 doi 10 1098 rsbl 2004 0247 PMC 1629050 PMID 17148121 Goth A amp Evans C S 2004 Social responses without early experience Australian brush turkey chicks use specific visual cues to aggregate with conspecifics Journal of Experimental Biology 207 13 2199 2208 doi 10 1242 jeb 01008 PMID 15159424 Harris R B Birks S M Leache A D 2014 Incubator birds Biogeographical origins and evolution of underground nesting in megapodes Galliformes Megapodiidae Journal of Biogeography 41 11 2045 2056 doi 10 1111 jbi 12357 S2CID 53532720 Worthy Trevor H 13 January 2016 A case of mistaken identity for Australia s extinct big bird theconversation com O Connor Jingmai Falk Amanda Wang Min Xiao Ting Zheng 3 January 2020 First report of immature feathers in juvenile enantiornithines from the Early Cretaceous Jehol avifauna Project Vertebrata PalAsiatica doi 10 19615 j cnki 1000 3118 190823 via researchgate net a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Birks S M amp Edwards S V 2002 A phylogeny of the megapodes Aves Megapodiidae based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 23 3 408 421 doi 10 1016 s1055 7903 02 00002 7 PMID 12099795 Chen D Hosner P A Dittmann D L O Neill J P Birks S M Braun E L Kimball R T 2021 Divergence time estimation of Galliformes based on the best gene shopping scheme of ultraconserved elements BMC Ecology and Evolution 21 1 209 doi 10 1186 s12862 021 01935 1 PMC 8609756 PMID 34809586 Gill Frank Donsker David Rasmussen Pamela eds July 2021 Pheasants partridges francolins IOC World Bird List Version 11 2 ed International Ornithologists Union Retrieved 23 November 2021 Microlivestock Little known small animals with a promising economic future National Academies Press 1991 p 170 171 doi 10 17226 1831 ISBN 978 0309042956 Retrieved 5 April 2022 Cocker Mark The Lava Birds PDF Tourism Solomons Retrieved 5 April 2022 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Megapodiidae Mound builders Internet Bird Collection ibc lynxeds com videos photos amp sounds Nest mound ofM tenimberensis photograph Oriental Bird Club Archived from the original on 2011 07 27 via Internet Archive archive org Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Megapode amp oldid 1157436772, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
