Biometric and diet of the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in its arid wintering areas of North Africa
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Abstract
Biometric and diet of the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758) in its wintering areas in northeastern Algeria was studied following the body measurements and analysis of 117 gizzard contents from November 2014 to February 2015 at three localities. The mean total body length was 20.55 ± 1.38 cm and the average total body mass was 62.58 ± 9.93 g. The study revealed that bird diet is very diverse and composed of three fractions: (i) a vegetable fraction with mainly olives and other vegetables; (ii) an animal fraction mainly composed by invertebrate preys; and (iii) an inert fraction formed by hairs, feathers, pebbles and fibers. The plant fraction was represented in all the analyzed gizzards and 59.82 % of them contain only plant items. The animal fraction was represented by 37 invertebrate prey taxa, divided into 4 classes. Insects dominated in numbers, mostly including Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, which cover 51.56 % and 35.87 %, respectively. No arthropod was overrepresented in terms of occurrence and there were differences between months and stations. The GLM analysis shows that the variation in animal prey numbers ingested was very highly significant according to bird length and body mass, wintering months and studied regions.
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