Mbatwe Mbatara – Science – ABC Color

Félix de Azara did not indicate why he assigned the above names to this bird. In his manuscript, he only indicated that he had this Mbatwetwe in his room, and that some also called it Jakavere. Neither Bertone (vocabulary) nor Gatti (encyclopedia) have recorded anything about the common name of this bird, now known as Mbatwe Mbatara.

Our natural world has only the individual he described, which he bought from Payaguá.

label

Sonnini considers the Azara-backed black plover to be an unknown species, but it was not, as it was classified by Linnaeus under the name Tringa macularia (Actitis macularia; 1766, Syst. Nat., Ed. 12, 1, p. .249) , of the spotted plover or Tringa maculata of Edwards (represented in the 277th edition – type II – of Excerpts from Natural History -T.2, 1760-; Edwards described to him Spotted Plover a specimen in sight of his friend William Bartram, who hunted it in southern Pennsylvania, sent her to London) and Brisson’s Turdus aquaticus.

The adjective defining this type was formed from the Latin word macularia / with spots, for the reason that regarding the aforementioned spotted plovers, Edwards wrote the following:

The head is speckled with small, dark elongated spots along its plumage; it increases in size on the neck towards the back, where it is larger; (…) the shoulder and wing feathers are transversely marked with dark dots; (… Color, speckled on the throat with small dark spots; on the chest they are larger and of a certain shape, as shown in the figure; on the thighs, abdomen, and cover of the lower arms these dark spots are not as regular as on the chest.

habits and live

Azara knew nothing for certain about the habits and nests of this bird, certainly because it is a migratory bird. In his manuscript, he mentioned the following, but not in his notes:

“This bird is looking for its food, they told me, at the water’s edge, in floodplains and small lakes. (…) About their nest, and other habits, I asked them, and they could not tell me a word. (…) They told me that it is called Also Jacaveré, he raises three children on earth in a straw nest [lo que evidencia que quienes esto le dijeron la confundieron con el Jakavere (Gallinago paraguaiae), que no es migratoria y anida en el Paraguay, con lo que Azara hizo bien al suprimir esta información de sus Apuntamientos]”.

In addition, our natural scientist recorded in the manuscript what he had observed about the mentioned bird in captivity, and stipulated in this regard:

“The one I will describe, I bought from the Payaguá Indians alive, and gave him freedom in my room. He went a month without eating but no ground corn I dropped the other birds from the cages. After this time I bought a Yacuberé [Jakavere] Above, as I noticed that he did not eat corn, I gave him minced meat, and then I saw that Mbetwee eats it with pleasure and preference. The habits he noticed are the following. Walking in small, rapid, or repetitive steps, always at the same speed, running a little, and stopping abruptly. Sometimes, when he stops, he raises his head vertically, and then immediately lowers them all. He walks while standing. I’ve never seen him climb on chairs or chests or hide behind them, he’s always been in the middle of the room. I’ve never seen him lying down, only once did I see him cloudy standing on one leg. She barely moves her neck and head at all, it’s walking motions, and it all looks stiff. He looks very stupid, sad and cowardly. If he finds another bird facing him, even if he does not touch him, he shrieks and stutters, and sometimes I have seen him open his wing as if in defense of himself, and then throw his neck. At night with the light he walks and runs as in the day. To eat the meat, he takes a small piece and shakes it into one small round, gives it a little again, shakes it again, and continues like this until he swallows it. I can’t say anything else.”

Characters

The description of the black perch backed up in the notes is not much different from that of Mabatuytuy in the manuscript, so it is not worth dealing with.