Long-tailed Widowbird - Morphology

Morphology

Long-tailed Widowbirds exhibit distinct sexual dimorphism. Males and females exhibit differences in behavior and morphological traits. Adult males are entirely black, including under their wing-covets. Males’ wing shoulders are orange red and their wing-covets white. Their bills are bluish white. Males are known for their distinctly long tails, which contain twelve tail feathers. Of these twelve tail feathers, between six and eight are approximately half a meter (approximately 20 inches) long. Males have wingspans of approximately 127 to 147 millimeters (approximately 5 to 5.8 inches).

Females have a rather subdued coloration. The upper portion of the female’s body is streaked with buff or tawny and black. Female chests, breasts and flanks are slightly paler than their above coloring. The area under the wing-covets is black and the females’ tail feathers are narrow and pointed. Finally, their bills are horn-colored.

Non-breeding males are slightly larger than females, though they demonstrate a remarkably similar appearance. For the most part, these males are colored in the same manner as the females, except in that they are more broadly streaked above and below and have wings and wing shoulders with the morphology of the breeding class of males. Rarely, males in the non-breeding class have elongated brownish black tail feathers, though these feathers are substantially shorter than those of the breeding class.

Immature males and females are very similar in appearance to the adult female. However, immature males, much like adult non-breeding males, are slightly larger than adult females.