The Amazonian royal flycatcher (''Onychorhynchus coronatus'') is a

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird in the family

Tityridae Tityridae is family of suboscine passerine birds found in forest and woodland in the Neotropics. The 45 species in this family were formerly spread over the families Tyrannidae, Pipridae and Cotingidae (''see Taxonomy''). As yet, no widely acc ...

according to 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). It is found in throughout most of the

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 Boli ...

in northern

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 ...

, eastern

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, eastern

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

, eastern Colombia,

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 ...

, 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 northern and western

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 ...

.Sample, R., B. Shackelford, and R. Kannan (2020). Royal Flycatcher (''Onychorhynchus coronatus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.royfly1.01 retrieved September 8, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The IOC considers the Amazonian royal flycatcher and three other royal flycatcher taxa to be separate species and places them in the family Tityridae. 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 ...

(SACC-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 202 ...

consider the four to be subspecies of the widespread royal flycatcher (''Onychorhynchus coronatus''

sensu lato ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular c ...

). SACC-AOS places ''O. coronatus'' in family

Onychorhynchidae The royal flycatchers are a genus, ''Onychorhynchus'', of passerine birds in the family Tityridae. Names The specific epithet of the type species, ''coronatus'', and the common name of all the species in this genus, royal flycatcher, refer to ...

and includes four other flycatcher species in that family. Clements places it in family Oxyruncidae and includes those four, one other flycatcher, and the sharpbill. IOC considers all of them to be in Tityridae.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 The Amazonian royal flycatcher has two subspecies, the nominate ''Onychorhynchus coronatus coronatus'' and ''O. c. castelnaui''.

Description

The Amazonian royal flycatcher is approximately long and weighs . It is dark brown above and dark buffy yellow below. The rump and tail are reddish cinnamon. The bill is long and broad. It has an erectile fan-shaped

crest Crest or CREST may refer to: Buildings * The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York *"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York * Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switze ...

that is red in the male and yellow-orange in the female.

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of the Amazonian royal flycatcher is found in southern and eastern Venezuela, the Guianas, and in Brazil east of the Rio Negro and

Rio Tapajós Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese word for "river". When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil. Rio or Río may also refer to: Geography Brazil * Rio de Janeiro * Rio do Sul, a ...

. ''O. c. castelnaui'' is found east of the Andes in western Amazonia, from southeastern Colombia and Venezuela's Amazonas state south through Ecuador into Peru and northern Bolivia and east in Brazil to the Rio Negro and Rio Tapajós. The Amazonian royal flycatcher inhabits humid lowlands, both

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 Work ...

evergreen and

second growth The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds each ...

forests. It is a bird of the midstory, often along streams and in seasonally flooded

várzea forest A várzea forest is a seasonal floodplain forest inundated by whitewater rivers that occurs in the Amazon biome. Until the late 1970s, the definition was less clear and várzea was often used for all periodically flooded Amazonian forests. Althoug ...

Behavior

Feeding

All of the royal flycatchers are

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

Breeding

The Amazonian royal flycatcher's breeding season has not been established. Their nest is long and narrow and is suspended from a branch or vine, usually above water. The clutch is two eggs; only the female incubates them and broods and feeds the nestlings.

Vocalization

The Amazonian royal flycatcher is usually inconspicuous and quiet. Its song is "a descending, slowing series of plaintive whistles" and its call a repeated "''keeeyup'' or ''keee-yew''".

Status

The IUCN has assessed the Amazonian royal flycatcher as being of Least Concern. However, all of the royal flycatchers "are vulnerable to forest loss or degradation".

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from1=Q81901857, from2=Q13563474 Amazonian royal flycatcher Birds of the Amazon Basin Birds of the Guianas Amazonian royal flycatcher Amazonian royal flycatcher