The great birdwing butterfly or Ornithoptera priamus poseidonThe first specimens of birds of paradise to arrive in Europe came with the Portuguese
explorers. Those early explorers who reached the Moluccan Islands were shown
skins of the brightly coloured and richly decorated birds. For some reason these first
specimens were legless and they came with a story that the birds never landed, but
mated and hatched their eggs in a heavenly paradise. It was in 1522 that the Victoria,
the only ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet to complete the first circumnavigation of
the world, returned to Spain with two bird of paradise skins given by the Sultan of
Bacan as a gift for the King of Spain. As written by Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler
of their voyage:
He also gave for the King of Spain two most beautiful dead birds ... They have no wings
but instead of them long feathers of different colours, like plumes ... They never fly, except
when the wind blows. The people told us that those birds come from the terrestrial paradise,
and they call them bolon diuata, that is to say, Birds of God.Wallace was disappointed that he had not yet seen any birds of paradise on Wamma
but soon learned that at this time of the year they were all out of plumage. However,
the small red species, the king bird of paradise, retained its plumage all year round so
152 Where Australia Collides with Asia
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