The Guianan puffbird (''Notharchus macrorhynchos'') 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 and their relatives in the near passerine family Bucconidae are tropical tree-dwelling insectivorous birds that are found from South America up to Mexico. Together with their closest relatives, the jacamars, they form a divergent li ...

, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. 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 ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

, and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. It was formerly considered to be

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 organ ...

with the

white-necked puffbird The white-necked puffbird (''Notharchus hyperrhynchus'') is a species of bird in the family Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in Mexico, Central America, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.Remse ...

and the buff-bellied puffbird with the English name "white-necked puffbird".

Taxonomy and systematics

The Guianan puffbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist

Johann Friedrich Gmelin , fields = , workplaces = University of GöttingenUniversity of Tübingen , alma_mater = University of Tübingen , doctoral_advisor = Philipp Friedrich GmelinFerdinand Christoph Oetinger , academic_advisors = , doctora ...

in his revised and expanded edition of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

's ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

''. He placed it in 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 ...

Bucco ''Bucco'' is a genus of birds in the puffbird family Bucconidae. Birds in the genus are native to the Americas. The genus ''Bucco'' was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the collared puffbird as the type sp ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Bucco macrorhynchos''. Gmelin based his description on the ''Tamatias noirs et blancs'' or ''Barbu à gros bec, de Cayenne'' that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath the Comte de Buffon. Buffon's specimen had been sent to Paris from

Cayenne Cayenne (; ; gcr, Kayenn) is the capital city of French Guiana, an overseas region and Overseas department, department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic Oc ...

by Monsieur Duval. The Guianan puffbird is now placed in the genus ''

Notharchus ''Notharchus'' is a genus of puffbird in the Bucconidae family. The genus was introduced by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1863. The type species was subsequently designated as the white-necked puffbird (''Notharc ...

'' that was introduced in 1863 by the German ornithologists

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 18 ...

and

Ferdinand Heine Jakob Gottlieb Ferdinand Heine (9 March 1809, in Halberstadt – 28 March 1894) was a German ornithologist and collector. Heine had one of the largest private collection of birds in the mid-19th century. The collection now housed at the Heineanum ...

. The generic name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''nōthēs'' meaning "sluggish" and ''arkhos'' meaning "leader" or "chief". The specific epithet ''macrorhynchos'' is from

''makrorrhunkhos'' and means "long-billed". The

(''Notharchus hyperrhynchus'') and the buff-bellied puffbird (''Notharchus swainsoni'') were formerly considered 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 ...

. In 2002 Pamela Rasmussen and Nigel Collar, in their chapter in the ''

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 ...

'', promoted ''swainsoni'' to species status and suggested that ''hyperrhynchus'' might also be a separate species. In 2004 the South American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithologists' Union 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 ...

split ''macrorhynchos'' into three species. The English name "white-necked puffbird" was transferred to ''Notharchus hyperrhynchus'' and a new name "Guianan puffbird" given to the

nominate 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 ...

''Notharchus macrorhynchos''. These changes have been adopted by other taxonomists. The Guianan puffbird is now considered to be

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 ...

: no subspecies are recognised.

Description

The Guianan puffbird is about long and weighs . It is mostly glossy blue-black. It has a white forehead, throat, upper breast, and center of the belly. A broad black band separates the last two. The white of the throat extends as a narrow line around the nape. The flanks are barred black and white and the tail is black with narrow white tips to the feathers. The eye color varies from straw to red. The large bill and feet are black. The song is "a series of whistles...'ui-ui-ui... wi-di-dik wi-di-dik wi-di-dik...'". It also makes "a clear nasal falling 'düür'" call.

Distribution and habitat

The Guianan puffbird is found in extreme eastern Venezuela,

the Guianas The Guianas, sometimes called by the Spanish loan-word ''Guayanas'' (''Las Guayanas''), is a region in north-eastern South America which includes the following three territories: * French Guiana, an overseas department and region of France * ...

, and northeastern Brazil north of the Amazon River. It inhabits

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...

tropical evergreen forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

semi-evergreen Semi-deciduous or semi-evergreen is a botanical term which refers to plants that lose their foliage for a very short period, when old leaves fall off and new foliage growth is starting. This phenomenon occurs in tropical and sub-tropical woody spec ...

forest, and ''

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 ...

'' forest. It occurs at all levels from the ground to the canopy.

Behavior

Feeding

The Guianan puffbird hunts from an open perch by sallying, either catching its insect prey on the wing or plucking it from vegetation, and usually returning to the same perch. It beats its catch on the perch before eating it.

Breeding

Both sexes excavate the nest cavity, usually in an arboreal

termitarium Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattod ...

or rotting tree. Most nests are about above the ground, but they have been reported as low as and as high as . Holes in the ground and an earth bank have also been reported. The clutch size is not known.

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 Guianan puffbird as being of Least Concern. It has a large range and a stable population of at least 50,000 mature individuals.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1272640

Guianan puffbird The Guianan puffbird (''Notharchus macrorhynchos'') is a species of bird in the family Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. It was formerly considered to be con ...

Birds of the Guianas

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot