REARED IN TEXAS



Two Andean Cock-of-the-Rock Rupicolaperuvianus chicks were reared

earlier this year at The Dallas World Aquarium, reports Josef Lindholm.

One was hand-reared from the day it hatched and the other was parent-

reared. Josef believes it is the first time two different females in the same

collection have hatched chicks the same year. For the first time an Ornate

Hawk-Eagle Spizaetus ornatus was hatched and parent-reared at The Dallas

World Aquarium. Several pairs of Pale-mandibled Aracaris Pteroglossus

torquatus erythropygius , Green Aracaris P. viridis and Ivory-billed Aracaris P.

azara hatched young, as well as Crimson-ramped Toucanets Aulacorhynchus

haematopygus and Guianan Toucanets Selenidera culik. More than 20

Ocellated Turkeys Meleagris ocellata were bred, two Yellow-knobbed

Curassows Crax daubentoni and two Hawk-headed Parrots Deroptyus

accipitrinus were parent-reared.



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COOPERATIVE BREEDING PAYS OFF


Cooperative breeding is most common amongst species of African

starlings that inhabit savannahs, where the rainfall varies greatly from one

year to the next, according to a report by Dustin Rubenstein and Irby Lovette

quoted in Birdscope Autumn 2007, Vol.21, No.4, p. 1. “When you don’t know

what conditions you will be facing in the next breeding season, it pays - in

an evolutionary sense - to live and breed in family groups because more

chicks survive over the long haul,” said Rubenstein, who initiated the study

as part of his graduate work at Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Rubenstein

and Lovette say that it is not the amount of rainfall that really matters, but

rather whether the rainfall pattern is predicatable. The Superb Starling

Lamprotornis superbus is a prime example of an African starling that lives

and breeds in family groups.



