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Project Noah Nature School
Megapodius reinwardt
Found several near a rainforest boardwalk looking for seeds and insects in solitary. About the size of a chicken, very quiet and very shy.
Spotted on Mar 13, 2010
Submitted on Mar 13, 2011
6 Comments
The really interesting thing about the megapodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megapode) is that they build huge mounds in which to incubate their eggs.
Thanks. The mounds really were a lot bigger that I thought, I wish I had taken a photo of one but I was in a rush.
I also wish some of the names were a little more imaginative.
Ha! It reminds me of being in Costa Rica. All the English names for birds are so ridiculously specific, but a lot of the Costa Rican names are basically just mimics of bird calls.
Michael, you have to see the feet, they really are orange. That said, Europeans sucked at naming Australian fauna. They were either clinically descriptive, like Yellow-tailed black cockatoo, or simple appropriated the name of a European animal that looked similar, like "robin", even though the two are not at all related.
What a name!
Excellent photo. I saw a few in Queensland, and even more impressively, one of their mounds.