Calyptorhynchus lathami
Description
Of all the black-cockatoo species the Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami) is the smallest at 46-50cm in length. It has a dull black to brown-black head, neck and belly, with orange to red tail panels and an otherwise dull black body. They have a small, unremarkable crest and their beak is large and bulbous. Glossy Black-Cockatoos use their strong beak to crack open casuarina tree seed pods to extract the seeds. They feed almost exclusively on Casuarina trees and you can often see evidence of their presence by the torn seed pods that litter the ground. The Glossy Black-Cockatoo is much quieter and less noisy than other black-cockatoo species, but their calls are very distinctive, and can be heard easily in the forest.
Adult females can be distinguished from males by their wider tails, yellow patches on their neck and head and they also have black bars breaking up the orange-red of their tail panels. The male's tail panels tend to be bright red.
The Glossy Black-Cockatoo pair up and mate for life. The female prepares the nest in the hollow of live or dead trees and incubates the eggs. She rarely leaves the nest except when she needs to feed herself after the chicks are newly hatched. Males will bring food to the female and chicks during incubation and brooding. When the chicks are capable of flight they are still fed by both parents for up to four months and will remain with their parents until the next breeding season.
The Glossy Black-Cockatoo is widespread along the east coast of Australia from Mackay, Queensland to Victoria, with an isolated population living on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. They are heavily dependent on of Allocasuarina species for food and as such inhabit woodland and open forests dominated by Allocasuarina with suitably older Eucalypt trees with hollows for breeding.
Adaptations
- Large strong beak for cracking seed pods and creating hollows
- Can hold seed pods in claws while feeding
- Pair and mate for life so don't need to constantly find a mate each breeding season
Feeding relationships
- What I eat: she-oak seeds (Allocasuarina), sometimes wood-boring larvae
- What eats me: Common Brush-tailed possum (eats eggs)
Interesting facts
The Glossy Black cockatoo populations have been declining mostly due to land clearing that have removed the trees they use for a food source and nesting sites. It is one of the our more threatened species of cockatoo in Australia and is declared vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria and endangered in South Australia and across Australia.