Black-billed sicklebill

Species of bird

The black billed sicklebill (Drepanornis albertisi), also known as the buff tailed sicklebill (leading to easy confusion with the hummingbird of the same name), is a species of bird of paradise. It, along with its congener, are the only members of the genus Drepanornis.

Widespread throughout its large range, the black billed sicklebill is evaluated as being of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES.

The generic name Drepanornis consists of the words Drepane for "sickle" and ornis for "bird", so the genus name literally means "sickle bird", referring to their sickle shaped bill; the specific name commemorates the Italian naturalist Luigi Maria d'Albertis, who discovered this species in 1872. The race cervinicauda subspecific name consists of cervinus for "stag colored" and "cauda" for tail, geisleri honors Bruno Geisler, a German ornithologist who described this subspecies, and inversus means "overturned".

The black billed sicklebill is medium sized, about 35 cm long, brown. The male has a bare maroon grey skin around its eye, buff colored tail, dark brown iris, yellow mouth and black sickle like bill. It is adorned with dark, horn like forecrown feathers, an erectile fan like bronze neck plumes and elongated purple tipped flank plumes. The unadorned brown female is smaller, with bill longer than male and dark barred below.

Its diet consists mainly of fruit and arthropods. The female lays one to two pale cream eggs with brown and grey spots.

The black billed sicklebill is found in mountainous areas with a scattered range of presence across western, central and eastern New Guinea. The species is mostly distributed in tropical montane forests at altitudes of 1100 to 1900 m above sea level. It overlaps with Drepanornis brujini only barely, but no hybridization has ever been recorded, though it is possible to occur.