Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Coraciiformes > Meropidae > Merops > Merops orientalis

Merops orientalis (Green Bee-eater)

Wikipedia Abstract

The green bee-eater (Merops orientalis) (sometimes little green bee-eater) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family. It is resident but prone to seasonal movements and is found widely distributed across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and the Gambia to Ethiopia, the Nile valley, western Arabia and Asia through India to Vietnam. They are mainly insect eaters and they are found in grassland, thin scrub and forest often quite far from water. Several regional plumage variations are known and several subspecies have been named.
View Wikipedia Record: Merops orientalis

Infraspecies

Merops orientalis beludschicus
Merops orientalis ceylonicus
Merops orientalis ferrugeiceps
Merops orientalis orientalis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
21
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.34668
EDGE Score: 2.12186
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  16.5 grams
Birth Weight [2]  3.1 grams
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  100 %
Forages - Understory [3]  100 %
Clutch Size [5]  6
Clutches / Year [1]  1
Incubation [4]  15 days
Mating Display [2]  Ground and non-acrobatic aerial display
Speed [6]  27.291 MPH (12.2 m/s)
Wing Span [6]  9 inches (.23 m)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Himalaya Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan No
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen No
Indo-Burma Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam No
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka India, Sri Lanka No

Prey / Diet

Schistocerca gregaria (desert locust)[7]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Bubo bengalensis (Rock Eagle-owl)[8]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Torquatoides balanocephala <Unverified Name>[9]

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 5Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 6Pande, S., A. Padhye, P. Deshpande, A. Ponkshe, P. Pandit, A. Pawashe, S. Pednekar, R. Pandit & P. Deshpande (2013). Avian collision threat assessment at ‘Bhambarwadi Wind Farm Plateau’ in northern Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(1): 3504–3515
♦ 7SYMENS, P. (1988). Effects of the mass migration of desert locusts Schistocerca gregaria on birds in the Taif area. Arabia.
♦ 8Pande, S. & N. Dahanukar (2011). The diet of Indian Eagle Owl Bubo bengalensis and its agronomic significance. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(8): 2011–2017.
♦ 9Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0