Apus

Apus star chart (IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine, Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg)

Blaeu (1603), globe copied from Plancius/ Hondius (1598); RMG

One of the 88 IAU constellations. The Paradise Bird was an invention by Dutch sailors in the 1590s, the original spelling in Dutch "De Paradijs Voghel".

Etymology and History

Raggiana bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea raggiana). Varirata National Park, Sogeri Central Province, Papua New Guinea (CC BY JJ Harrison)

The word ‘apus’ is derived from the Greek ἄπους ‘apous’, footless, because the birds brought back by seafarers were mutilated. It refers to a type of bird that was first brought back by Magellan's expedition.

Early variants

de Houtman (1603) "de Paradijs Voghel", the Paradise Bird. screenshot of star catalogue.

The constellation was brought into its present form by the French surveyor Lacaille in the 18th century, when he introduced the constellation of Octant directly at the south celestial pole and, therefore, slightly reduced the neighbouring constellations. However, the constellation of the Bird of Paradise had already been depicted in the Uranometria by Johannes Bayer in 1603, as the idea goes back to Dutch sailors. The Uranometria subsequently formed the basis for many cartographers and astronomers.

Bayer, a lawyer from Augsburg who was interested in star charts as a hobby, had many models for his work: one of them was certainly the celestial globe by Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius from 1598, on which the constellation Apus appeared - labelled in Latin, of course. The Dutch had sent their own expedition to the East Indies, during which astronomical observations had also been made. Frederick de Houtman and the navigator Pieter Keyser compiled the first star catalogue for the southern hemisphere that has survived to this day. This star catalogue was published in the same year as the Uranometria. Still, the globes by Plancius and Hondius already contained figures for these previously poorly documented celestial regions at the South Pole.

The Dutch star catalogue not only gave the constellation the Latin name Apus (with a spelling mistake), but also the Dutch word for ‘bird of paradise’ (Paradijs Voghel).

Original Name of the Constellation

The name of the constellation was invented by Frederick de Houtman and first drawn by Plancius, both in Dutch. Bayer (1603) adopted the Latin term. The early names of the constellation are, therefore, the following:

year	author		spelling
1598	Plancius	globe gores	Paradysvogel
1602	Blaeu	globe	Apus Indica
1603	de Houtman	appendix of the dictionary of Malayan language	Paradijsvoghel
1603	Bayer	Uranometria	Apus
1605	Merula	Cosmographiae generalis libri tres, Part I, Book II, pp. 105-108 (no. VIII)	Avis Paradisi Paradijs-Voghel

The letter "y" with two dots resembles the ligature of "ij" that is historically found in Dutch. This specific inscription is at the historical building of the Institute for Physics of the University of Jena, Germany, built in 1902 (probably unrelated to the Dutch ligature but a pun).

Remark 1: Note that Plancius wrote the term with "y" (and with a "g" that is pronounced "kh" in Dutch) while de Houtman spelt it "ij" and with "gh" which is pronounced like English "g" (like in "girl"). The different "g"-sounds may be due to different dialects, but the "y"-"ij" shows a piece of the history of letters: In Dutch, "ij" and "y" have the same pronunciation (like English "aye"). Nowadays, only the "ij" form is used, but around 1600, both forms were used without little preference for one or the other. Rarely, in old inscriptions, the "y" can be found with two dots, resembling the historical ligature.

Remark 2: The first book of Merula's Cosmographiae was written mostly in 1597, and in a letter, dated 30 August 1600, to Marcus Welser in Augsburg, Merula claims that the first part of his work was ready to be printed. It might have influenced Bayer's work.

We suspect that Merula's description is based on a list which he received from Plancius around 1597/98 when he was still busy forming his constellations. For a few constellations, he had not yet decided which figures and names would finally be shown on his celestial globe; e.g. the constellations Volans, Grus and Hydrus also were given with alternative names.

Remark 3: Willem Blaeu made two globes, the first from 1602 is a copy of Plancius/ Hondius (1598) while the second, dating 1603, relies on de Houtman's data directly and, thus, presents several different views of the images and names. Blaeu's globe carries the inscription "Apus Indica" (Indian feetless bird).

Species of Bird

Today, the birds of the ‘bird of paradise’ family live mainly in New Guinea and Australia. The expedition with De Houtman and Keyser did not go there; they only visited Indonesia, where the bird is called Burung Cenderawasih.

Magellan was the first European to visit Guam and the Philippines (north of Papua New Guinea). Of his five ships with a crew of 270 men, only 18 men arrived back in Spain on 6 September 1522 after almost three years of expedition on a ship that was almost unseaworthy. He himself had not survived the voyage, but the cargo of this ship covered the costs of the expedition and brought a wealth of new knowledge back to Europe. Apart from cartographic knowledge, such as the Strait of Magellan in South America and the new islands in the Pacific, there were also species of exotic animals.

The specimens of birds of paradise were sold as decoration due to their magnificent plumage and the famous tail feathers of the males. Their feet were often torn off because they were considered ugly. In Europe in the 16th century, the rumour circulated that these birds had no feet - and so they were depicted on star charts.

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 1982 - Colnect 255746 - Red Bird of Paradise Paradisea rubra

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 1970 - Colnect 302638 - Greater Bird of paradise Paradisaea apoda

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 2013 - Colnect 666569 - Lesser Bird of paradise Paradisaea minor

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 1983 - Colnect 256023 - Wilson s Bird of paradise Diphyllodes respublica

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 1982 - Colnect 255745 - Twelve wired Bird of paradise Seleucides melanoleuca

• 

  Stamp of Indonesia - 1982 - Colnect 255740 - King Bird of paradise Cicinnurus regius

Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation

• 

  Blaeu (1603, globe copied from Plancius/ Hondius (1598); RMG

• 

  Paradysvogel in Plancius (1598)

• 

  Apus in Bayer (1603).

• 

  Apus in Bode (1782), German: Paradisvogel.

IAU WGSN Names

In 2023, it was proposed to use the original name of the constellation (in any of its forms) as a star name for the main star. The first depiction on the Hondius/Plancius globe shows the form "Paradys-vogel". α Aps (alf Apodis) is a red giant (K3-type) of 4.5 solar masses, so it will not go supernova but only produce a planetary nebula and end as an earth-sized diamond, a so-called white dwarf star (like our Sun).

All HIP Stars within this constellation

HIP 72370,HIP 81852,HIP 81065,HIP 80047,HIP 80057

References

• References (general)
• References (ancient Greco-Roman)
• References (medieval)