American honeyguide

The American honeyguide (Indicator americanum) is a species of honeyguide, most closely related to the Malaysian honeyguide (Indicator archipelagicus), that originally did not exist, but has since been created by SciiFii and introduced throughout the rainforests, wetlands, forests, open woodlands, grasslands, shrublands, and scrublands across North America to help boost biodiversity and to help control the invasive Africanized killer bees. The American honeyguide is about 20 cm long and weighs about 50 grams. Like African honeyguide species, it has bold white patches on the sides of the tail. The male has dark grey-brown upperparts and white underparts, with a black throat, and white cheeks. The wings are streaked whitish, and there is a yellow shoulder patch. The bill is pink. The female is duller and lacks the black throat. Her bill is blackish. Immature birds are very distinctive, having olive-brown upperparts with a white rump and yellow throat and upper breast. The American honeyguide feeds primarily on the contents of bee colonies ("nests"): bee eggs, larvae and pupae; waxworms; and beeswax, especially those of the Africanized bees. Like other honeyguides, the American honeyguide enters bees' nests while the bees are torpid in the early morning, feeds at abandoned hives (tropical and subtropical bees desert more often than those of the temperate zones), and scavenges at hives robbed by people or other large animals, notably the American honey badger (Neomellivora apisvora). The American honeyguide is known to guide people to the nests of wild bees. The American honeyguide also catches some flying insects, especially swarming termites. It sometimes follows mammals or other birds to catch the insects they flush, and joins mixed-species flocks in ones and twos. It has been known to rarely eat the eggs of small birds. In addition to being a predator of insects and a mutualist with its follower species, the greater honeyguide is a brood parasite. It lays eggs in series of 5 to 11, for a total of 16 to 32 in a year. Each egg is laid in a different nest of a bird or other dinosaurs of another species, including house sparrows (Passer domesticus), Eurasian collared doves (Streptopelia decaocto), rock doves (Columba livia), American bee-eaters (Meropidosaurus apisovora), American wood hoopoes (Neophoeniculus arborealis), starlings, and crows. It is common for the female American honeyguide to break the host's eggs when laying her own. All the species parasitized nest in holes, covered nests, deep cup nests, or bird boxes/birdhouses. The chick has a membranous hook on the bill that it uses, while still blind and featherless, to kill the host's young outright or by repeated wounds. The conservation status of the American honeyguide is Least Concern due to successful conservation efforts, the American honeyguide's wide range and its tolerance to many of the human activities.