Birds
Superb Lyrebird
Menura novaehollandiae · also called lyrebird, the world's best mimic
The superb lyrebird is a large, shy, ground-dwelling songbird from the wet forests of southeastern Australia, and it holds a title that is genuinely undisputed: it is the finest vocal mimic in the animal kingdom, able to reproduce almost any sound it hears.
Overview
Superb lyrebirds live in cool, wet eucalypt forest, rainforest, and fern gullies in the ranges of southern Victoria, New South Wales, and southeastern Queensland, and were introduced to Tasmania. They spend almost all their time on the forest floor, scratching through the deep, damp leaf litter for invertebrates with their strong feet and claws, and roosting in trees at night. They are weak flyers, using flight mainly to reach a roost or glide downhill. They are usually solitary or in loose family groups.
The mimicry
Roughly 80% of a male superb lyrebird’s song is imitation. He learns and blends the calls of 20 or more other bird species, delivering them in fast, seamless succession, and adds any other distinctive sound in his environment: the laugh of a kookaburra, the wingbeats of a departing flock, a dog barking, and — where people are present — camera shutters, car alarms, chainsaws, and machinery. The imitations are so precise that the mimicked birds react to them, and they are culturally transmitted, learned by young males from older ones so that local “dialects” of mimicry develop.
Song and display
In winter, the breeding season, a male builds several display mounds — low, cleared platforms of raked earth — across his territory and rotates between them. On a mound he raises his elaborate tail forward over his back, where the two curved outer feathers frame a shimmering fan of fine silver plumes, and he sings and dances, shuffling and stepping in a fixed pattern. Females tour the mounds, assess the performances, and mate with the males they choose; the female alone then builds a domed nest, incubates the single egg, and raises the chick.
An ecosystem engineer
A foraging lyrebird is a soil-turning machine. By digging through litter and topsoil for hours every day, a single bird moves an estimated 150 tonnes of material per hectare each year, burying dead leaves and bark, speeding their decay, and creating damp bare patches. Studies show this measurably reduces the fine fuel load that carries bushfires, so lyrebird forests burn less fiercely.
Status
The superb lyrebird is Least Concern and common, but it is tied to moist, deep-litter forest and is therefore sensitive to land clearing, drying, and intense fire. The 2019–20 bushfires burned a large portion of its range, prompting concern and closer monitoring. Introduced foxes and cats are significant predators of adults and nests.
Superb Lyrebird: common questions
How good a mimic is the superb lyrebird?
It is generally considered the best vocal mimic of any animal. A displaying male can imitate the calls of more than twenty other bird species — kookaburras, currawongs, whipbirds, rosellas, and even the wingbeats of a flock of parrots — in rapid succession and with such accuracy that the copied birds respond to it. Lyrebirds also imitate other forest sounds — dingoes, koalas, and, near human activity, camera shutters, car alarms, crying babies, chainsaws, and construction machinery. Captive birds have picked up flutes and human speech. The mimicry is learned, passed between generations, and forms about 80% of a male's song.
Why does the male lyrebird sing and dance?
To attract females. In the breeding season a male clears a set of low earth mounds on the forest floor and visits them in turn, and on each he throws his spectacular tail forward over his head into a silvery, shimmering canopy, and sings — a long medley of his own song and his mimicry — while stepping and shuffling in a stylised dance. Females visit several males, watch and listen, and choose. The male plays no part in nesting or raising young.
How does the lyrebird help prevent bushfires?
By constantly raking the forest floor. A lyrebird digs and scratches through leaf litter and topsoil for hours a day looking for invertebrates, and researchers have estimated that in doing so it turns over on the order of 150 tonnes of litter and soil per hectare per year. This buries and breaks down dead leaves and bark — the fine fuel that carries bushfires — and creates patches of bare, damp earth, measurably reducing fire risk and intensity in the areas where lyrebirds forage.
Are superb lyrebirds endangered?
The species is Least Concern and remains common across the wet forests of southeastern Australia, and it tolerates some habitat disturbance. However, it depends on moist, deep-litter forest, so it is vulnerable to habitat clearing, drying, and severe fire. The catastrophic 2019–20 Australian bushfires burned a large share of the superb lyrebird's range, and it was moved onto watch lists afterward while populations recover. Introduced foxes and cats also prey on lyrebirds, especially ground-foraging adults and nestlings.