The buff-browed chachalaca (''Ortalis superciliaris'') 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 lightweigh ...

in the family

Cracidae The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches southernmost parts of Texas in the Unite ...

, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

What is now the buff-browed chachalaca was previously a subspecies of what was then called variable chachalaca (''Ortalis motmot''). (Confusingly, after the split the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

(IOC) renamed ''O. motmot'' "little chachalaca" but the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

(AOS) and the

Clements taxonomy ''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 ...

retained the name "variable" for it.) It 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 "unispec ...

.del Hoyo, J. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Buff-browed Chachalaca (''Ortalis superciliaris''), 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.bubcha1.01 retrieved September 30, 2021Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021

Description

The buff-browed chachalaca is the smallest member of genus ''Ortalis''. It is long. Its crown, neck, and upper breast are gray and the rest of its upperparts brown. Its lower breast and belly are tan. The central tail feathers are dark green-brown with chestnut tips; the outer ones are chestnut. Unique among ''Ortalis'', it has a prominent

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

that can be any color from buffy white to pale cinnamon. Its facial skin is dark slate gray.

Distribution and habitat

The buff-browed chachalaca is found in northeastern Brazil south of the Amazon River in parts of the states of

Pará Pará is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian state) ...

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 ...

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

Tocantins Tocantins () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 20 ...

, and

Piauí Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66&n ...

. It is a bird of the lowlands, inhabiting scrublands and forest thickets including those in heavily degraded areas.

Behavior

Feeding

No formal study of the buff-browed chachalaca's diet has been published, but it has been observed eating palm fruits and some flowers.

Breeding

A study of the buff-browed chachalaca's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality, seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as environmental factor, habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples includ ...

in Pará found a nesting season between December and February, but active nests have been found in other months as well. One described nest was a flat structure of twigs with leaves and grasses. Nests have been found in a tree fork, on top of tall grass, and in dense bushes. The typical clutch size is two or three eggs.

Vocalization

The buff-browed chachalaca's vocalizations are "typical of ''Ortalis''"; they are higher pitched and less raucous than those of chestnut-headed chachalaca (''O. ruficeps'').

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 ...

originally assessed the buff-browed chachalaca as Near Threatened but since 2012 has rated it as being of Least Concern. "Threats relisted as habitat destruction and fragmentation, heavy hunting pressure and trade, all of which suggest that it is declining."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1268404 buff-browed chachalaca Birds of Brazil Endemic birds of Brazil buff-browed chachalaca buff-browed chachalaca Taxonomy articles created by Polbot