• picture
  • picture
  • picture
  • picture
Public Radio's Environmental News Magazine (follow us on Google News)

BirdNote®: Where Are All The Queen Birds?

Air Date: Week of

There are plenty of “king” species among our feathered friends, like the Ringed Kingfisher, but no “queen” birds to speak of. (Photo: Flavio Camus)

There are plenty of “queens” of the animal kingdom, like the Queen Snake, Queen Butterfly, and queen bees and ants. But the only royal birds, it seems, are ones that carry the title “king” – think kingfishers, kinglets, and the King Vulture – as BirdNote®’s Michael Stein notes, there don't seem any birds with "queen" in their name. He explains why.



Transcript

[MUX - BIRDNOTE® THEME]

CURWOOD: The scientific disciplines are increasingly trying to attract women, to correct a long-standing imbalance that heavily favors men. And in today’s BirdNote®, Michael Stein points out that it’s not only bench science where the female of the species is drastically underrepresented.

http://birdnote.org/show/where-are-all-queen-birds

BirdNote® Where Are All the Queen Birds?

STEIN: On an island in the Southern Ocean, a pair of King Penguins:

[King Penguin pair calls, ML 42302]

In Central America, an enormous Ringed Kingfisher:

[Ringed Kingfisher calls]

While nearby, a Thick-billed Kingbird calls:

[Thick-billed Kingbird call, repeated]

There's a King Vulture, a King Eider, 89 species of kingfishers, 11 kingbirds, 3 tiny kinglets - at least 115 birds across the world with the word king in their name, and no queens. 10,000 bird species – and not one “queenfisher” or “queenlet.”

Elsewhere in nature, there's the Queen Snake, Queen Butterfly, Queen Angelfish, Queen Moth, queen bees, and queen ants. But perhaps the lack of "queen birds" isn't so mysterious. Nearly all the early explorers and naturalists who named birds were men. And when a bird flashed a colorful crown, male royalty must have come to mind first. Once upon a time, there was a species of bird-of-paradise named Queen Carola’s Parotia. Carola was the wife of King Albert the 1st of Saxony, who also had a bird named for him, the King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise. Alas, the queen’s bird had its name trimmed to the more tidy “Carola’s Parotia.”


Carola’s Parotia used to be a queen, named after Queen Carola of Saxony, until the bird was dethroned because its name was too cumbersome. (Photo: Richard Bowdler Sharpe)

So today the scoresheet reads: King birds, one hundred and fifteen. Queen birds, zero.

I’m Michael Stein

###
Written by Bob Sundstrom
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. King Penguins [42302] recorded by Theodore A Parker III; Ringed Kingfisher [128045] recorded by Curtis A Marantz; Thick-billed Kingbird [109081] recorded by G A Keller
King Penguin image by Graham Canny flickr.com/photos/31918792@N03; Eastern Kingbird by P. Bonenfant; Ringed Kingfisher by Flavio Camus flickr.com/photos/chicuco; Carolia’s Parotia illustration by Richard Bowdler Sharpe
BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Dominic Black
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org February 2015 Narrator: Michael Stein

http://birdnote.org/show/where-are-all-queen-birds

CURWOOD: There are some regal photos at our website, LOE.org.

 

Links

Where Are All the Queen Birds?

 

Living on Earth wants to hear from you!

Living on Earth
62 Calef Highway, Suite 212
Lee, NH 03861
Telephone: 617-287-4121
E-mail: comments@loe.org

Newsletter [Click here]

Donate to Living on Earth!
Living on Earth is an independent media program and relies entirely on contributions from listeners and institutions supporting public service. Please donate now to preserve an independent environmental voice.

Newsletter
Living on Earth offers a weekly delivery of the show's rundown to your mailbox. Sign up for our newsletter today!

Sailors For The Sea: Be the change you want to sea.

Creating positive outcomes for future generations.

Innovating to make the world a better, more sustainable place to live. Listen to the race to 9 billion

The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment: Committed to protecting and improving the health of the global environment.

Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an archival print of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary wildlife photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs.

Buy a signed copy of Mark Seth Lender's book Smeagull the Seagull & support Living on Earth