Flame Bowerbird

Open encyclopedia reference

The flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens) is one of the most brilliantly coloured bowerbirds. The male is a medium-sized bird, up to 25 cm long, with flame orange and golden yellow plumage, elongated neck plumes and yellow-tipped black tail. It builds an "avenue-type" bower with two side walls of sticks. The female is an olive brown bird with yellow or golden around the stomach. The flame bowerbird is distributed in and endemic to rainforests of southern New Guinea. The male flame bowerbird also has a courtship display along with his bower, twisting his tails and his wings to the side, and then shaking his head quickly. The courtship behaviour of the flame bowerbird was filmed by Japanese photographer Tadashi Shimada in Dancers on Fire, a documentary that aired on the Smithsonian Channel, and has also been documented in Dancing with the Birds.

Wikipedia contributors, Flame bowerbird; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T04:45:00.564652+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Sericulus ardens (D'Albertis & Salvadori, 1879)

Name authority

(D'Albertis & Salvadori, 1879)

Common name

Flame Bowerbird

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Ptilonorhynchidae

Genus

Sericulus

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyPtilonorhynchidae
11. genusSericulus Swainson, 1825
12. speciesSericulus ardens (D'Albertis & Salvadori, 1879)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Sericulus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 19 records assigned to Ptilonorhynchidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=835320 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4WV2R. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.