LIFE HISTORY OF THE WHITE‐WHISKERED SOFT‐WING MALACOPTILA PANAMENSIS

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Abstract
Summary: In the rain‐forests of El General, Costa Rica, White‐whiskered Soft‐wings nest from March to July in a short, descending tunnel in slightly sloping ground. The nest chamber is lined with dead leaves on bottom and sides, and a low collar of sticks and petioles surrounds the round aperture in the leaf‐strewn ground.The two (rarely three) white eggs are incubated by both sexes, the male sitting continuously from the early afternoon until the following dawn, the female taking one long session of five hours or more in the forenoon. Usually each parent quits the burrow before its partner comes in sight, leaving the eggs uncovered for half an hour or more.The nestlings, blind and completely naked at hatching, remain in the burrow until 20 days old, when they resemble the adults. During their first few days, the male alone broods, staying in the burrow almost constantly, while the female brings all the food, which from the first is delivered at the burrow's mouth. The blind nestlings move up the tunnel to take their meals, certainly from the age of three days onward, and probably on the day of hatching. The male starts to bring food when the young are about six days old and no longer brooded by day, but at all times he brings far less than the female. For the whole period in the nest, feedings averaged less than once per hour for two nestlings.After nocturnal brooding ceases, the nestlings at nightfall raise up the leaves from the floor to form a screen in front of themselves. They never expose themselves at the burrow's mouth and are habitually silent. Although the parents were not seen to remove droppings, the burrow remains remarkably clean.In El General, a single brood appears to be raised each year.

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