The blue-throated motmot (''Aspatha gularis'') is a
species of
bird in the family
Momotidae. It is found in
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
,
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
,
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...
, and
Mexico.
Taxonomy and systematics
The blue-throated motmot is
monotypic. It apparently has no close relatives.
[Snow, D. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Blue-throated Motmot (''Aspatha gularis''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bltmot1.01 retrieved May 4, 2021]
Description
The blue-throated motmot is long and weighs . It has a long, graduated, tail that in contrast to that of most other motmots does not have racquet tips. The side of the adult's head is ochre with a black "ear" spot. It is mostly green above and paler green below. The throat is blue with a black spot just below it. The juvenile is duller and the green of the back is washed with olive.
[
]
Distribution and habitat
The blue-throated motmot is found from Oaxaca and Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
in Mexico south and east through Guatemala and a bit of El Salvador to Honduras. It inhabits montane evergreen and pine forest of medium to high humidity. In elevation it ranges from in Mexico but in Honduras it is not found below .[
]
Behavior
Feeding
The blue-throated motmot forages by plucking insects, especially beetles, from foliage while flying. It also eats some fruit and apparently feeds fruit to nestlings.[
]
Breeding
The blue-throated motmot nests in a burrow that it excavates in an earth bank; the burrows can be up to long and often have bends in them. In Guatemala it lays eggs in April, and a fledgling was collected in late May in Mexico. The clutch size is three.[
]
Vocalization
The blue-throated motmot typically calls from a high exposed perch. It usually gives single "hoot" or "huuk" note
but sometimes strings them together as "hoodloodloodloodl...
[
]
Status
The IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
has assessed the blue-throated motmot as being of Least Concern. Though its population appears to be decreasing, its population and range are large enough to achieve that rating[
]
References
External links
Image at ADW
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1123969
blue-throated motmot
Birds of Mexico
Birds of Guatemala
Birds of Honduras
blue-throated motmot
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot