The blue-necked jacamar or blue-cheeked jacamar (''Galbula cyanicollis'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family

Galbulidae The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of near passerine birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical ...

. It is found in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Bolivia, and

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

.Tobias, J., T. Züchner, T.A. de Melo Júnior, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Blue-cheeked Jacamar (''Galbula cyanicollis''), 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.bucjac1.01 retrieved May 10, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The blue-necked jacamar is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

. It and the

yellow-billed jacamar The yellow-billed jacamar (''Galbula albirostris'') is a species of bird in the family Galbulidae. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Taxonomy and systematics The yellow-billed j ...

(''Galbula albirostris'') were at one time considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

but have been treated as a superspecies since approximately 1974.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 19 January 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 19, 2021

Description

The blue-necked jacamar is long and weighs . The male's upper parts are shiny green and the underparts chestnut. The face is steely blue to green on an east to west gradient. The female is duller and its underparts are tawny buff.

Distribution and habitat

The blue-necked jacamar occurs east of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

and south of the Amazon River. It is found in eastern Peru, far northern Bolivia, and in Brazil east to

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

and south to Rondônia and northern Mato Grosso. It inhabits the interior of '' terra firme'' and '' várzea'' forests. There it is found in the lower strata and often in small gaps. It also occurs in

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

in the ''

cerrado The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are the ...

'' of Brazil. In elevation it ranges up to .

Behavior

Feeding

The blue-necked jacamar's diet is a large variety of insects. It perches on exposed branches and sallies from there to catch its flying prey.

Breeding

Two blue-necked jacamar nest burrows were found in arboreal termite nests in Brazil, one in June and the other in October; each held two eggs. Birds in breeding condition were found in September.

Vocalization

The voice of the blue-necked jacamar is essentially the same as that of the yellow-billed. A song is her

and a call he

Status

The IUCN has assessed the blue-necked jacamar as being of Least Concern. It occurs in several protected areas and is generally common over its range. However, "Owing to its greater reliance on intact forest understorey, this species, as ''G. albirostris'', is likely to be more susceptible to deforestation than are most other jacamars."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1266619 blue-necked jacamar Birds of the Amazon Basin blue-necked jacamar Taxonomy articles created by Polbot