Velvet Black Coat Combining With An Iridescent Blue Scarf, The Magnificent Riflebird Becomes The Star This Season

The Magnificent riflebird is such an extraordinary bird! This species has velvet black plumage that makes it stand out from the crowd. More noticeably, its iridescent blue-green crown and triangle-shaped breast shield turn this bird into kings in its colony.

Oddly enough, while the birds-of-paradise family (Paradisaeidae) is revered the world over for its otherworldly beauty, not a whole lot is known about them. It doesn't help that most of these birds are hidden away in some of the most remote and dense rainforests in the world, but a team from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is determined to change that.