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Resplendent Quetzal Research Paper

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Title:
Does the characteristics of Resplendent Quetzal’s tail such as its length and color difference affect male’s mating success during the courtship?

Abstract:
The resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) is a bird in the trogon family. It is found from Chiapas, Mexico to western Panama. It is well known for its colorful plumage. This species is 36 to 40 cm (14–16 in) long, plus up to 65 cm (26 in) of tail streamer for the male, and weighs about 210 g. Resplendent quetzals have a green body (showing iridescence from green-gold to blue-violet) and red breast. Their green upper tail coverts hide their tails and in breeding males are particularly splendid, being longer than the rest of the body. The primary wing coverts are also unusually …show more content…

Female and male resplendent quetzals equally divide their work during their suckling period: while looking after their nestling, both parents take turns at incubating, with their long tail-covert feathers folded forwards over the back and out of the hole, where they tend to look like a bunch of fern growing out of the hole. The incubation period lasts about 18 days, during which the male generally incubates the eggs during the day while the female incubates them at night.

Introduction:
Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) are monogamous territorial breeders. The appearance of male and female resplendent quetzal are distinctive: the male is the most beautiful due to his colorful, sheen and glitter plumage which shows his elegance and the noble dignity. They have beautiful green feathers and red breast, they are shinning and turns to bright blue-violet under the sun. The greatly elongated upper tail, which are golden green with blue or violent iridescence, conceals the dark, central feathers of the tail entirely. The size of male resplendent quetzal is usually about 36 to 40 cm from bill to the base of the tail and the tail is usually up to 65cm long. Thus, it is obvious that the tail of male resplendent …show more content…

This trait not only influences the mating success of male resplendent quetzal, but also influencing the number of offspring in the living environment. If the results of this experiment reject my null hypothesis, which means that my hypothesis of the longer tail length of male resplendent quetzal, the higher rate for successful mating will be successfully established. Thus the characteristic of the long tail will increase resplendent quetzal’s adaptability and leads to fitness. If the results of my experiment do not reject my null hypothesis, then the tail length is not an adaptation to increase fitness. There might be some possible errors during the experiment that leads to the wrong answer such as the monogamy breeding behavior of resplendent quetzal. However, there might be other interesting adaptations that are not been tested and we can still use this trait to investigate another function, for example, instead of tail length that may affect the mating success, the brightness of the color of the tail may be the trait that can increase the fitness of breeding. By investigating how different brightness of the tail may influence the mating success, I would like to have three male and female resplendent quetzals with similar behaviors and characteristics as my test samples. Because most color that appear among quetzal species are green, thus, I would like to paint each quetzal’s tail with

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