Lawes's Parotia

The male is a velvet black bird with an erectile silvery white forehead crest, iridescent purple blue nape and golden green breast plumes which are structurally colored. The breast plumes have V-shaped barbules, creating thin-film microstructures that strongly reflect two different colors, bright blue-green and orange-yellow. When the bird moves the color switches sharply between these two colors, rather than drifting iridescently. During courtship, the male bird systematically makes small movements to attract females, so the structures must have evolved through sexual selection. The inside of its mouth is lime-colored. Adorned with three ornamental spatule head wires from behind of each eye and elongated black flank feathers, that spread skirt-like in courtship display. The female is a brown bird with dark head, yellow iris and dark-barred yellowish brown below. The iris is colored in various amounts of blue and yellow, changing according to the bird's mood.