Wryneck - Wryneck

Japanese: アリスイ(蟻吸) - アリスイ（英語表記）wryneck

A bird of the woodpecker family (illustration). Total length is about 18 cm. Its plumage is gray-brown with black and brown horizontal stripes. It is an oddball among woodpeckers, as it rarely perches vertically on tree trunks like other woodpeckers, and does not bore holes in the bark with its beak to catch insects. The shaft of its tail feathers is not hard, and its beak is not strong. It lives in sparse forests and forest edges, and as its name suggests, it descends to the ground and eats by sucking up adult ant insects and pupae with its long tongue. In the trees, it perches at right angles on branches like a small bird, and licks insects from between the bark and from the undersides of leaves with its tongue.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

キツツキ目キツツキ科の鳥（イラスト）。全長約18cm。羽色は全体が灰褐色で，黒色や褐色の横斑がある。キツツキ類の中では変り者で，他のキツツキ類のように，樹幹に垂直にとまることは少なく，樹皮にくちばしで穴を開けて昆虫類をとることもない。尾羽の羽軸がかたくなく，くちばしも強くない。疎林や林縁にすみ，その名のように地上に降りて長い舌でアリ類の成虫やさなぎを吸いとるようにして食べる。樹上では小鳥類のように，枝に直角にとまり，樹皮の間や葉裏から昆虫類を舌でなめとる。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

<<: Arisugawa-no-miya

>>: Ali Shīr Navā'ī