Green toucanets are

near-passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...

birds from the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Aulacorhynchus'' in the

toucan Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five ge ...

family. They are native to Mexico, and Central and South America. All are found in humid forests and

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

s in highlands, but a few also occur in adjacent lowlands.Short, L. L., & Horne, J. F. M. (2002). Toucans (Ramphastidae). pp. 220-272 in del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., & Sargatal, J. eds. (2002). ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...

.'' Vol. 7 Jacamars to Woodpecker. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. They are relatively small toucans, long, with colorful, mainly green,

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

. They are typically seen in pairs or small groups, and sometimes follow mixed species flocks.Restall, R. L., Rodner, C., & Lentino, M. (2006). ''Birds of Northern South America.'' Christopher Helm, London. (vol. 1). (vol. 2).

Taxonomy and systematics

A major

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

review in 1974 resulted in 6 species in the genus ''Aulacorhynchus'', and this was adopted by virtually all later authorities.Remsen, J. V., Jr., C. D. Cadena, A. Jaramillo, M. Nores, J. F. Pacheco, J. Pérez-Emán, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, D. F. Stotz, and K. J. Zimmer (2011).
A classification of the bird species of South America: Trogoniformes to Piciformes.
'' American Ornithologists' Union. Accessed 25 May 2011Dickinson, E. C., eds. (2003). ''

The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World The ''Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World'' is a book by Richard Howard and Alick Moore which presents a list of the bird species of the world. It was the first single-volume world bird list to include subspecies names, ...

.'' 3rd edition. Clement, J. F. (2007, w. online updates). ''

The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 2022 ...

.'' 6th edition. In 2001, it was suggested that '' A. prasinus'', as traditionally defined, was a

species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

that should be split into 7 different species based on preliminary morphological evidence.Navarro, A., Peterson, A., López-Medrano, E., and Benítez-Díaz, H. (2001). ''Species limits in Mesoamerican ''Aulocorhynchus'' Toucanets.'' The Wilson Bull. 113(4): 363-372 This was to some extent supported by genetic evidence, which suggested that additional species should be recognized. As a result, ''A. griseigularis'' was split from in ''A. albivitta'' based on this early genetic evidence but these species are now lumped together again.Bonaccorso, E., Guayasamin, J. M., Peterson, A. T., and Navarro-Sigüenza, A. G. (2011). ''Molecular phylogeny and systematics of Neotropical toucanets in the genus Aulacorhynchus (Aves, Ramphastidae).'' Zoologica Scripta, 40. Puebla-Olivares, F., E. Bonaccorso, A. E. de los Monteros, K. E. Omland, J. E. Llorente-Bousquets, A. T. Peterson, and A.G. Navarro-Siguenza. (2008). ''Speciation in the Emerald Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus prasinus) complex.'' The Auk. 125(1): 39-50. Currently, there remains a considerable lack of consensus to support the IOC's latest taxonomy of ''Aulacorhynchus'' into eleven species. Several authorities still maintain that the genus ''Aulacorhynchus'' has only 7 species and treat the remaining as

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

. The SACC has called for further genetic studies of this genus.

Species

The genus ''Aulacorhynchus'' has eleven species considered to belong to the genus:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q781348 Toucans Higher-level bird taxa restricted to the Neotropics Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by John Gould