Blue-naped Mousebird

• Like all mousebirds, it can rotate all four toes forwards or backwards, which lets it hang upside down from branches while it eats, a posture no other bird adopts with such ease.
• It sleeps in a cluster: the group hangs packed together in a dangling mass and goes into night-time torpor, lowering its body temperature to save energy in the desert.
• It is one of the few small birds with an almost entirely plant diet, tough leaves included, and it has an adapted digestive system that other birds of its size do not have.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Thorn savannah, dry scrub and acacia woodland of the arid African belt

Birth weight

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Size at birth

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Sexual maturity

12 months

Gestation / incubation

14 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

3 eggs

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (en): Blue-naped mousebird

Best time: All year round in the arid savannahs of the Sahel and East Africa, by day; it flies in groups, with a very elongated outline because of the tail.