The crescent-chested puffbird (''Malacoptila striata'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 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 lightweig ...

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 ...

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

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

The crescent-chested puffbird was for a time called ''Malacoptila torquata'' but since the mid-1900s it has borne its current

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms * Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials *Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition ...

. 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), 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), 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 ...

treat it as having two subspecies, the nominate ''M. s. striata'' and ''M. s. minor''. However, BirdLife International's '' Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) treat those entities as separate species, the greater and lesser crescent-chested puffbirds respectively.Clements, 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, 2021HBW 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

Description

The crescent-chested puffbird is long. The nominate ''M. s. striata'' weighs from about ; ''M. s. minor'' is smaller. The nominate's head and upperparts are blackish with buffy streaks. The face is rufous around the bill and has a buffy or white "moustache". The wing is brown with buffy markings; the tail is plain dark brown. The upper breast has a white crescent with a black band below it. The lower breast is rufous, the center of the belly whitish, and the sides of the breast and belly dull brown with buffy scallops. ''M. s. minor'' has a brighter breastband and its undeparts are whiter without barring.Greeney, H. F., J. del Hoyo, P. C. Rasmussen, N. Collar, and G. M. Kirwan (2021). Crescent-chested Puffbird (''Malacoptila striata''), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (B. K. Keeney, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.crcpuf1.02 retrieved November 7, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The crescent-chested puffbird's nominate subspecies is found in southeastern Brazil from

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 to Paraná and Santa Catarina. ''M. s. minor'' is found in a small disjunct range in

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 ...

and Piauí states in Brazili's Northeast Region. The species inhabits a variety of semi-open landscapes such as the edges of humid lowland forest, logged forest, and secondary forest. It often occurs along roads and at the edges of clearings but rarely in the forest interior. In elevation it ranges from sea level to .

Behavior

Feeding

The crescent-chested puffbird appears to be a mostly solitary forager though there are reports of it following

army ant The name army ant (or legionary ant or ''marabunta'') is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limi ...

swarms with other birds. Its diet is not well documented but is believed to be mostly invertebrates.

Breeding

The crescent-chested puffbird's nominate subspecies breeds at least from October to December or January. The two known nests were in burrows excavated in earthen banks, but details of its breeding phenology, the nest itself, and eggs are lacking.

Vocalization

The crescent-chested puffbird's song is "a high-pitched whistle of 10+ notes, like a small tyrannid, ''bieh, bieh, bieh…''." Its alarm call is "a high, thin, descending ''seeee...''".

Status

The IUCN follows HBW taxonomy and so has treated the two subspecies of crescent-chested puffbird as separate species. The organization has assessed the "greater" ''M. s. striata'' as being of Least Concern. Its estimated population exceeds 72,000 mature individuals but the number is believed to be decreasing. It has assessed the "lesser" ''M. s. minor'' as Endangered due to increasing deforestation in its rather small range. Its population is unknown and believed to be decreasing.

References

External links

Crescent-chested puffbird photo gallery
VIREO {{Taxonbar, from=Q526204 Malacoptila Birds of the Atlantic Forest Birds of Brazil Endemic birds of Brazil Birds described in 1824 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot