Trade skins prepared in the Aru Islands and Maluku were dried, and the feet were removed as part of preparation. Skins that reached Europe in the sixteenth century therefore arrived legless. In the absence of any living specimen, a plausible explanation circulated: the birds lived permanently in the air, feeding on dew, never touching the ground.
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Paradisaea apoda, from Greek for footless. The name is retained because zoological nomenclature does not revise names for being factually misleading; priority governs, not accuracy. The birds have entirely ordinary strong feet and spend much of their time perched.
Males gather at leks in emergent trees, clearing leaves to admit light, and display by clapping the wings, calling and hanging inverted with the flank plumes fanned. Females visit, watch several males and mate with one; males provide nothing beyond sperm.