Critically Endangered
Maleo
Macrocephalon maleo
The Maleo is a large megapode and the only member of the monotypic genus Macrocephalon.
Appearance
The Maleo ranges from 55–60 cm (22–24 in) long with blackish plumage, bare yellow facial skin, reddish-brown iris, reddish-orange beak, and rosy salmon underparts. Juvenile birds have largely brownish and paler heads with short blackish-brown crests and browner upper parts.
Range and habitat
This species is endemic to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It is usually not present on altitudes exceeding 1,000 meters and is usually found in lowland hills or rain forests. Ideal nesting locations include river banks, lake shores, and coastal areas of the island.
The Maleo is endemic to Sulawesi and the nearby smaller island of Buton in Indonesia. The shrinking and fragmentation of forest habitats on the island pose serious threats to the surviving and future populations of the species.
Habitat labels include tropical forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The Maleo's egg is large, about five times as large as that of the domestic chicken's. The female lays and covers each egg in a deep hole in the sand and allows the incubation to take place through solar or volcanic heating.
Its diet consists mainly of fruits, seeds, mollusks, ants, termites, beetles, and other small invertebrates.
In crisis
A large number of former nesting sites have been abandoned as a result of egg poaching and land conversion to agriculture. Of the 142 known nesting grounds, only 4 are currently considered non-threatened. As of 2005, it is estimated that only 4,000-7,000 breeding pairs currently exist in the wild and these numbers are rapidly declining.
Due to aforementioned threats, current population numbers, and deemed value of the species, the Maleo is evaluated as critically endangered the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Alliance for Tompotika Conservation works with communities in Sulawesi to educate locals about the Maleo's endangered status and prevent the harvesting of eggs.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Maleo is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Maleo, Wikidata item Q836291. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
