Village Weaver
Village Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus ), male nest building
The Village Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus ), also called Textor Weber, is a species in the family of weaver birds. Previously, he was placed in the genus Textor and was then called Textor cucullatus.
Appearance
The village Weber reaches a body size of 15 to 18 centimeters. The males have a bright yellow plumage during mating season. Head and wings are feathered black contrast. Outside the mating season resembles the plumage of the males to the females. It is then greenish in color with a fine penciling.
Way of life
Textor Weber are lively and noisy colony breeders that build their kidney-shaped hanging nests of grass close together. During the nest building can be the males often observe how she is suspended upside down with fluttering wings on branches.
The incubation of eggs and rearing of young birds is mainly provided by the females.
Dissemination and habitat
Village weavers are found to Angola and the Cape Province of South Africa from Sudan and southern Ethiopia. They settle in this area of distribution the marginal areas of forests and agricultural land and village areas.
Evolutionary defense against brood parasitism
Village weavers are in the regions in Africa often the brood parasitism of gold cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx caprius ) exposed. In the course of evolution, village weavers, provide effective protection have therefore developed. You create custom spotted marked or colored eggs that they can easily be distinguished from foisted eggs. Evolutionary biologist David Lahti from the University of Massachusetts Amherst examined breeding colonies on the islands of Hispaniola and Mauritius, where village Weber 1790 ( Hispaniola ) and 1886 (Mauritius) have been introduced by man over the years and which have no incidence of brood parasites, and compared the eggs with those of the breeding colonies in Gambia and other African regions in South Africa. The result was that on both islands regressed the individual labeling pattern of the eggs in the village weavers. The eggs were less heavily spotted and stained. Especially on Hispaniola showed a pronounced regression of the markers, in Mauritius, the regression of recognition patterns in the eggs was less pronounced.