Home > Species > Birds > Pulitzer’s Longbill

Pulitzer’s Longbill

Macrosphenus pulitzeri

Overview
Conservation Attention
Threats

About

Pulitzer’s Longbill is a very elusive bird, favouring dense understorey growth.

Not much is known about this species’ breeding habits or ecological needs. This species is part of the Macrosphenus genus, which diverged from all other genera within the Macrophenidae family 23.7 million years ago. Unfortunately, this species habitat is severely fragmented, with until the 1970s, an estimated 95% of forest on the escarpment under coffee production. However, now this has been largely abandoned and subsistence agriculture is a threat. Slash and burn practices are used and the fires are uncontrolled which is another major threat to this species. Agricultural intensification and infrastructure development has led to large clearance of dense undergrowth and vine tangles which is the primary habitat for this species. A protected area at this species range at Chongoroi was recommended in the early 1970s, but this has not been established yet

Order: Passeriformes
Family: Macrosphenidae
Population: 1,500-3,800
Trend: decreasing
Size: 13cm

EDGE Score

EDGE Score: 4.9 (?)

ED Score: 15.83 (?)

GE / IUCN Red List (?)

Distribution

This species found from the escarpment of western Angola.

Habitat and Ecology

This species is found in dry evergreen forest, secondary growth and abandoned coffee plantations at 800-1,300 metres above sea level. This species is dependent on dense liana and vine tangles and thickets. It feeds low down, near the ground, on insects.

Find out more

Photo from ARKive of the Pulitzer's longbill (Macrosphenus pulitzeri) - Https://www.arkive.org/pulitzers-longbill/macrosphenus-pulitzeri/image-G96566.html
Please contact the photographer directly if you would like to use this picture.

Conservation Actions

For each key category of conservation action, we calculated a conservation attention score based on expert information. In this graph, a higher score means the action is being carried out more intensively over more of the species range. The colour shows how important each action is considered to be for the conservation of this species.

Engaging stakeholders	15
Addressing threats	19
Status of knowledge	15
Management plan	7
Capacity building	15
Behaviour change	11
Awareness raising	15
Funding	15
Legislation	11
	0 20 40 60 80 100
	Score: 100 means the activity occurs at high level across more than 75% of the species range
	Priority: High Medium Low Very Low

Overall Conservation Attention

We combined all of the expert information on conservation actions to calculate an overall conservation attention score for this species. Please help us to reach our goal of establishing dedicated conservation attention at “High” levels for all EDGE species.

Very Low Low Medium High

13%

More information

Recent studies have grouped all possible conservation activities for any species into nine key categories (Washington et. al 2015). For each action, we asked experts for each species to assess the extent to which that action is being carried out and how much of the species’ range that action occurs in. For each action we used these two pieces of information to calculate the conservation attention score per action. A score of 100 means that the action is being carried out to a high level across at least 75% of the species range. We then combined the scores for all actions into an overall conservation attention score for the species. The experts also judged how important each category was to the conservation of that particular species.

This wordcloud illustrates the threats facing this species. The size of each word indicates the extent of a species range that is affected by that threat (larger size means a greater area is affected). The colour of the word indicates how much that threat impacts the species (darker shades of red mean the threat is more severe).