Up to four-fifths of its song is mimicry, accurate enough to identify the species being copied
Superb lyrebird — the outstanding vocal mimic among birds.
Nature · Birds
Superb lyrebird
Least Concern · south-eastern Australia
Menura novaehollandiae — Menuridae
A large, long-tailed, ground-dwelling songbird of the wet forests of south-eastern Australia, and the finest vocal mimic in the animal kingdom. Up to about four-fifths of a male's song can be imitation: other birds' calls reproduced so exactly that the species can be identified, together with chainsaws, camera shutters and car alarms. The male's tail, spread and thrown forward over his head in display, carries two curved lyrates that gave the bird its name, and it appears on the Australian 10-cent coin.
How to spot them
- ▸A big brown, pheasant-like songbird, 80–100 cm long including the tail, scratching on the forest floor
- ▸Male's tail of 16 feathers: two broad, curved, notched lyrates, two plain medians and twelve lacy filamentaries
- ▸Display on a scratched earth mound, tail thrown forward over the head as a shimmering silver canopy
- ▸Song a continuous stream of perfect mimicry, delivered mostly in the Australian winter (June–August)
- ▸Deep scratchings and turned-over leaf litter along gully floors in wet eucalypt forest and rainforest
How to know it
Its tail is thrown forward over its head on a scratched earth mound, two curved lyrates giving the bird its name
Superb lyrebird display.
The species appears on the reverse of the Australian 10-cent coin
Superb lyrebird.
Chick was a captive bird whose imitations of a flute tune were reportedly picked up by wild birds in the New England tableland
Superb lyrebird — the 'flute lyrebird' songs of New South Wales.
A single male's song of camera shutters and chainsaws made a David Attenborough sequence famous
Superb lyrebird, in The Life of Birds (1998).
Its genus name means 'crescent tail' and its species name 'of New Holland'
Menura novaehollandiae, the superb lyrebird.
A huge ground-scratching songbird that turns over tonnes of leaf litter a year and reduces bushfire fuel
Superb lyrebird — an ecosystem engineer.
Quick-fire facts
- •Length 80–100 cm including the tail; the male's tail alone is about 55 cm; it is among the largest of all passerines
- •IUCN Red List: Least Concern, though the 2019–20 Australian bushfires burned a large share of its habitat
- •The male takes about seven years to grow his full tail and displays on several mounds within a territory
- •Mimicry recorded includes kookaburras, whipbirds, cockatoos, dogs, chainsaws, car alarms and camera motors
- •There are only two lyrebird species: the superb and Albert's lyrebird (Menura alberti) of the Queensland–New South Wales border
- •The female builds the domed nest, lays a single egg and raises the chick alone; incubation is about 50 days, exceptionally long for a songbird
- •It was introduced to Tasmania in the 1930s and 1940s and persists there
- •It appears on the Australian 10-cent coin and, in stylised form, in the crest of New South Wales' National Parks and Wildlife Service
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- The Australian Museum — Superb lyrebird