Longest bird of paradise

The world's longest species of bird of paradise is the black sicklebill Epimachus fastosus, adult males of which measure up to 110 cm in total length. It is native to mid-mountain forests on the island of New Guinea, and is one of several closely related species of sicklebill. Like most other birds of paradise, the adult female is smaller than the male and has much plainer plumage.

Some controversial sicklebill specimens have been obtained that were once considered to represent rare, additional species of sicklebill that have never been seen alive in the wild by scientists, and were therefore deemed extinct. One of these so-called "lost" birds of paradise is Elliot's sicklebill E. ellioti. Today, however, most researchers consider it more likely that its specimens were actually naturally occurring hybrids between the black sicklebill and some related species, but a few researchers deem this unlikely, especially as the proposed progenitor species are so unlike one another. They therefore propose that Elliot's sicklebill is indeed a valid, albeit nowadays most probably vanished, species in its own right.