The spot-billed toucanet (''Selenidera maculirostris'') is a

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 ...

bird in the toucan family

Ramphastidae 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 g ...

. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.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 July 2022. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved July 24, 2022

Taxonomy and systematics

The spot-billed toucanet was originally described in the genus '' Pteroglossus''. It has at times been 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 ...

with

Gould's toucanet Gould's toucanet (''Selenidera gouldii'') is a near-passerine bird in the toucan family Ramphastidae. It is found in Bolivia and Brazil.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. ...

(''S. gouldii'') and the two are

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

.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 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022 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 "unispe ...

Description

The spot-billed toucanet is long and weighs . Males and females have the same bill pattern but the female's bill is shorter. The bill has a thin vertical black line at its base. The bill is mostly ivory at the base to greenish-yellow at the tip. The middle of the culmen is black, the

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. T ...

has three to five vertical black stripes, and the

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

has a black patch near the end. Both sexes have bare green-yellow to blue skin arond the eye and a golden-yellow tuft of feathers behind it; both are paler in the female. Adult males have a black head, nape, chin, throat, and belly. Their upperparts are green with a yellow band on the lower neck. Their tail is green with chestnut tips on the central three pairs of feathers. Their flanks are yellow and their undertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are s ...

are red. Females have chestnut to cinnamon-rufous where the male has black. Immatures are duller overall, usually without a yellow band on the back, and their bill's pattern is not sharp.Short, L.L. (2020). Spot-billed Toucanet (''Selenidera maculirostris''), 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.spbtou1.01 retrieved December 29, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The spot-billed toucanet is found in Brazil from the states of

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest b ...

and

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

south and into eastern Paraguay and Argentina's

Misiones Province Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes ...

. It is a bird of the Atlantic Forest where it is found in

old-growth An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological feature ...

and secondary forest, selectively logged and remnant forest, palm groves, and

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 ...

at the edges of 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 ...

''. In elevation it ranges from sea level to at least .

Behavior

Movement

As far as is known, the spot-billed toucanet is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The spot-billed toucanet forages from the undergrowth up to the forest's mid-storey, singly, in pairs, or in small groups. Its diet is known to include fruit and some vertebrates but details are lacking.

Breeding

The spot-billed toucanet's breeding season is from December to June in the northern part of its range and from October to January in the southern part. In the wild it nests in tree cavities, and both sexes provision young birds, but almost nothing else is known about its natural breeding biology. In captivity the clutch size is two or three, the incubation period is about 15 days, and time to fledging is about six to seven weeks.

Vocal and non-vocal sounds

The spot-billed toucanet makes " uff, growling 'ggrooaw' to 'kkrowk' notes in series". The sexes usually sing one at a time. It also makes "low 'tut' notes, rattling notes, purring low notes, ndbill-snapping sounds."

Status

The IUCN has assessed the spot-billed toucanet as being of Least Concern. It has a large range but its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is common in some protected areas but locally threatened elsewhere. "Information sneeded on breeding biology of wild birds."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1270195 spot-billed toucanet Birds of the Atlantic Forest spot-billed toucanet Taxonomy articles created by Polbot