Terpsiphone atrochalybeia
The Sao Tome Paradise Flycatcher, *Terpsiphone atrochalybeia*, is a captivating and strikingly beautiful passerine bird endemic to São Tomé Island in the Gulf of Guinea. Males are particularly spectacular, characterized by an entirely iridescent blue-black plumage and remarkably elongated central tail streamers, which can more than double their 18-19 cm body length to reach up to 30 cm or more. Females share the blue-black coloration but are typically duller and possess significantly shorter,...
This species primarily inhabits humid lowland rainforests and also thrives in shaded cacao plantations on São Tomé Island, typically found from sea level up to around 1200 meters.
Its diet consists almost exclusively of small to medium-sized insects, including moths, flies, beetles, and wasps, which it captures primarily through aerial hawking and gleaning from vegetation.
The Sao Tome Paradise Flycatcher is an active, diurnal bird, typically foraging singly or in pairs within the forest canopy and understory. It is an agile aerial insectivore, performing acrobatic sallies from a perch to snatch flying insects, often returning to the same or a nearby branch. It als...
The Sao Tome Paradise Flycatcher is strictly endemic to São Tomé Island, one of the two main islands in the nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, located in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Central Africa. Its distribution covers almost the entire island where suitable forest or shaded plantat...
Near Threatened
- The male's tail streamers can grow to be more than twice the length of its body, making it one of the most disproportionately tailed birds in the world. - It is one of only two paradise flycatcher species endemic to an African oceanic island, the other being the Annobón Paradise Flycatcher. - D...