The eastern striolated puffbird (''Nystalus striolatus'') 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 Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

and

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 ...

.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 24 August 2021. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved August 24, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

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), the South American Classification Committee of 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 ...

(SACC), 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 ...

treat the eastern striolated puffbird as a species. According to them, the original striolated puffbird (''Nystalus striolatus'') was found to include a previously undefined species that is now the western striolated puffbird (''N. obamai''); it had not been recognized even as a subspecies. ''N. striolatus'' was renamed "eastern striolated puffbird" after the split. It has two subspecies, the nominate ''N. s. striolatus'' and ''N. s. torridus''.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 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 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 However,

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

's ''

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 ...

'' (HBW) retains the English name "striolated puffbird" for ''N. striolatus'' and assigns ''N. s. striolatus'', ''N. s. obamai'', and ''N. s. torridus'' as subspecies of it.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved May 27, 2021 To further complicate matters, ''N. s. torridus'' has been suggested as a species in its own right.Whitney, B.M., V.Q. Piacentini, F. Schunck, A. Aleixo, B.R.S. de Sousa, L.F. Silveira, and M.A. Rêgo. 2013. A name for the Striolated Puffbird west of the Rio Madeira with revision of the ''Nystalus striolatus'' (Aves: Bucconidae) complex. Pp. 240-247 in ''Handbook of the Birds of the World''. Special Volume: New Species and Global Index (del Hoyo et al., eds.). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Description

The eastern striolated puffbird is about long and weighs . Its crown is dark brown with wide rufous bars, blackish toward the rear. Its hindneck has a broad buffy collar. Below that is a blackish band and the rest of the upperparts are dark brown with reddish buff spots and (at the rear) bars. The tail is narrow and blackish brown with thin rufous bars. The face has a white spot in front of the eye; the rest of the face is buffy with fine dusky streaks. The chin is white and the throat ochracous with fine blackish streaks that gets lighter to the rear with heavier stripes. The center of the belly is whiter and unstreaked. The bill is mostly olive green, the eye pale ochre, the legs brown, and the feet dirty green.Rasmussen, P. C., N. Collar, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Eastern Striolated-Puffbird (''Nystalus striolatus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.strpuf1.01 retrieved November 2, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of eastern striolated puffbird is found in the south central

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

, in Brazil between the

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

and Tapajós rivers, and into extreme northeastern Bolivia ( Santa Cruz Department). ''N. s. torridus'' is found in northeastern Amazonian Brazil south of the Amazon River and east of the Tapajós River. The species inhabits a variety of landscapes including the edges of humid

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

, ''

terra firme Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scienti ...

'', and

swamp forest Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes. Freshwater swamp forests are found ...

s, and also

transitional forest Forest transition refers to a geographic theory describing a reversal or turnaround in land-use trends for a given territory from a period of net forest area loss (i.e., deforestation) to a period of net forest area gain. The term "landscape turn ...

. It typically occurs near water or clearings, and tends to stay in the subcanopy or canopy. The species is not known to migrate.

Behavior

Feeding

The foraging behavior and diet of the eastern striolated puffbird have not been documented. Most puffbirds hunt by sallying from a perch to pluck large insects and small vertebrates from foliage or bark.Winkler, D. W., S. M. Billerman, and I.J. Lovette (2020). Puffbirds (Bucconidae), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.buccon2.01 retrieved November 2, 2021

Breeding

The 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 ...

of the eastern striolated puffbird has not been described. Other members of its genus nest in earthen tunnels.

Vocalization

The eastern striolated puffbird's song is "a soft, sad whistle, 'whip, whiwheeu, wheeeeeuu,' with distinctive cadence." There are some differences between the songs of the two subspecies.

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 ...

follows HBW in treating the striolated puffbird as a single species; it is assessed as being of Least Concern. Taken as a whole, it has a very large range. Its population has not been quantified and is believed to be decreasing. It is locally quite common in Brazil and occurs in several protected areas.