Club-winged Manakin

Like several other manakins, the Club-winged Manakin produces a mechanical sound with its extremely modified secondary remiges. The manakins have adapted their wings in this odd way as a result of sexual selection. Charles Darwin noted how females could cause evolutionary change simply by the influence of their mating preferences. Thus, in manakins, the males have evolved adaptations to suit the females' attraction towards sound. Wing sounds in many manakin lineages, however, have evolved independently. Some species pop like a firecracker, and there are a couple that makes whooshing noises in flight. The Club-winged Manakin, with its unique ability to produce musical sounds, is indisputably the most extreme example of sexual selection in manakins.

The Club-winged Manakin is classified as Least Concern. Does not qualify for a more at risk category. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category.

The Club-winged Manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus) is a small passerine bird which is a resident breeding species in the cloud forest on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains of Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. The manakins are a family (Pipridae) of small bird species of subtropical and tropical Central and South America. Music-making mechanism - Like several other manakins, the Club-winged Manakin produces a mechanical sound with its extremely modified secondary remiges. More

The club-winged manakin, found only in a strip of threatened cloud forest on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains along the extreme northwest corner of Ecuador extending into Colombia, has adapted its wings in this odd way due to sexual selection - the sound makes the male more attractive to females of the species. More

The club-winged manakin is the only bird known to sing with its feathers, pictured at top. The bird uses a club-shaped feather as a pick to rake the ridges of another feather. It does this by raising its wings over its back, and shaking them back and forth more than 100 times a second so that one feather rubs the other like a spoon moving across a washboard. More

The Club-winged Manakin Uses Violin Like Wings to Attract Mate = December 15, 2009 By Bill Askenburg Club-Winged Manakin Club-Winged Manakin Most animals communicate by singing, howling, croaking, or speaking. Some animals use other sounds too- whistling, clapping, drumming, or rattling, for example. More

Club-Winged Manakin Makes Mating CallA male club-winged manakin making its mating call. Video courtesy of Kim Bostwick.http://brightcove.condenet.com/images/1564549380/1564549380_65790288001_Movie1-T.jpg?pubId=1564549380 Club-Winged Manakin Makes Mating Call Leaf TransportLeaf veins show why looped networks could be more eficient than networks modeled a...http://brightcove.condenet.com/images/1564549380/1564549380_64922289001_leaftransport-t.jpg?pubId=1564549380 Leaf Transport Ginko LeafLeaf veins show why looped networks could be more eficient than networks modeled a...http://brightcove.condenet.com/images/1564549380/1564549380_64921477001_ginko-holeb-t.jpg?pubId=1564549380 Ginko Leaf Pluto RotatingScientists have created an animation of Pluto rotating from the best images ever o...http://brightcove.condenet.com/images/1564549380/1564549380_64876911001_pluto-t. More

A Club-winged Manakin makes a unique courtship sound when he flips his wings up behind his back. Illustration by Kimberly Bostwick However, even among manakins, one species stands out: the Club-winged Manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus), the only bird that uses its feathers as a violin. More

Amazing video of the Club-winged Manakin, I hadn’t heard of this one before. Re the WW Choughs, I thought the clicks were supposed to be throat clicks rather than beak?? It is impossible to tell from just watching them. More

of the club-winged manakin playing his wings. Bird Woos with Violin-Like FeathersBy Rossella Lorenzi, Animal Planet Newssmall textlarge text Aug. 2, 2005 — Males can do the most amazing things to impress females — at least if they are male club-winged manakins. More

This is the club-winged manakin, a rainforest bird the size of a sparrow. If a male manakin hopes to breed, he has to make a sound that is totally unique. How manakins make music How manakins make music Kim Bostwick of Cornell University observed these birds 'singing' in "What Males Will Do. More

The club-winged manakin's wing muscles were also remarkably large. ''They were like little Popeyes, with big bulging muscles,'' Dr. Bostwick said. The clues began to come together in 2002 when Dr. Bostwick returned to Ecuador with a new digital camera that could record 1,000 frames a second, over 30 times faster than her previous model. She made new films of the club-winged manakin, and when she returned home she found that she could finally see what the bird's wings were doing. More

the mating actions of the club-winged manakin, a bird which can display a unique natural ability to moonwalk (yes, as in the dance move made famous by Michael Jackson). More

observed Club-winged Manakins displaying in second growth at 4,500 feet elevation below Queremal (3�32'N lat., 76�43'W long.), Colombia, near Kilometer 50 on the road between Cali and Buenaventura. The indications are that these feathers have a role in sound production. Figure 1. Display of the Club-winged Manakin. Left, the wings flash upward briefly. Right, the wings are held up and their front edges rotated downward. See text for description of accompanying sounds. More

Club-winged manakins have one peculiar wing feather with a stiff, curved tip, right next to one with a series of ridges. Bostwick and her colleagues proposed that curved tips raked across the ridges on the neighboring feather like a spoon pulled across a washboard, producing the bird’s 1500-cycle-per-second sound. Biologists are quite familiar with this way of making sound–but in crickets and other insects. More