Rothschild's lobe-billed bird-of-paradise

Hybrid bird

Rothschild's lobe-billed bird-of-paradise

Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Superfamily:	Corvoidea
Family:	Paradisaeidae
Hybrid:	Paradigalla carunculata × Lophorina superba
Synonyms
Loborhamphus nobilis Rothschild, 1901

Rothschild's lobe-billed bird-of-paradise (Loborhamphus nobilis), also known as the noble lobe-bill, is one of six enigmatic species of bird-of-paradise collected in Papua New Guinea for zoologist Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild. It is only known from the holotype.

In 1930, it, along with the five other collected species, was considered by Erwin Stresemann to be a hybrid between the long-tailed paradigalla and the superb bird-of-paradise, though doubts have been raised about the parentage.^[1] However, a DNA analysis confirmed the hybrid identity.^[2]

Notes

^ Fuller (1997).
^ Thörn et al. (2024).

References

Frith, Clifford B. & Beehler, Bruce M. (1998). The Birds of Paradise. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-854853-9.
Fuller, Errol (1997). The Lost Birds of Paradise. Oxford: Voyageur Press. ISBN 1-85310-566-X.
Thörn, Filip; Soares, André E. R.; Müller, Ingo A.; Päckert, Martin; Frahnert, Sylke; van Grouw, Hein; Kamminga, Pepijn; Peona, Valentina; Suh, Alexander; Blom, Mozes P. K.; Irestedt, Martin (2024-06-08). "Contemporary intergeneric hybridization and backcrossing among birds-of-paradise". Evolution Letters: 1–15. doi:10.1093/evlett/qrae023.