Endangered
Titicaca Grebe
Rollandia microptera
Titicaca Grebe is a bird in the family Podicipedidae (order Podicipediformes) — Rollandia microptera, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Its coloration is unmistakable. The only congener, the white-tufted grebe, does not look very similar. The color pattern of the Titicaca grebe is altogether similar to that of the red-necked grebe, but it has a darker belly, and a white (not light grey) throat patch that runs down the neck nearly to the breast.
It is entirely flightless, but will use wing-assisted running over considerable distances.
This is a mid-sized grebe, varying from 28 to 45 cm in overall length.
Range and habitat
The Titicaca flightless grebe occurs in a habitat mosaic in relatively shallow waters (up to about 10 m/35 ft deep). The reed belt is found in water of up to 4 m (13 ft) deep and constitutes the breeding habitat. The Titicaca grebe, also known as the Titicaca flightless grebe or short-winged grebe, is a flightless species of grebe found on the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Nearly 95% of prey mass is made up by the Orestias pupfish of the Titicaca drainage. As the grebe eats only prey smaller than some 15 cm (6 in), the adult pejerrey that are of commercial interest are not part of its diet as they are far too large.
It is likely that each pair that holds a territory attempts to breed once per year. The period in that the parents care for the young is probably rather prolonged, and there is possibly no fixed breeding season.
In crisis
As its name implies, its main population occurs on Lake Titicaca. In the past, the population was larger and several of these lakes – such as Lakes Umayo and Arapa – apparently had and may still have permanent large colonies (BirdLife International 2006). It is classified by the IUCN as Endangered, with a population of less than 750 adults (BirdLife International 2006).
Censuses in the latter part of the 20th century revealed that the population had declined from several thousand coincident with the introduction of monofilament line gill nets in the 1990s. It was confirmed (Martinez et al. 2006) that the mortality of grebes drowning in these nets is considerable, killing potentially thousands of individuals each year in 2003.
Titicaca Grebe is 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 Titicaca Grebe, Wikidata item Q933705. 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.
