Black-necked Aracari
Pteroglossus aracari
Multicolored aracari with a black head, an olive-green back, and a bicolored bill: pale above and black below. Note the red band across its yellow underparts and its red rump. Commonly encountered in a variety of different forested habitats, where it typically gathers in small noisy groups, occasionally with other aracari and toucan species at fruiting trees.
Identification
The black-necked aracari is 43 to 46 cm (17 to 18 in) long and weighs 177 to 325 g (6.2 to 11 oz). Males and females have the same plumage and bill coloration, though the female's bill is shorter. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a black head, neck, and throat with chestnut-black ear coverts. Their brown eye is surrounded by blue-gray to black bare skin. Their upperparts are mostly green with a red rump. Their underparts are yellow with a wide red band across the lower breast and greenish thighs. Their bill has an ivory maxilla with a black culmen and base and a black mandible; a vertical white line is at the bill's base. Immatures' black and green plumage is sootier than adults' and the red and yellow paler. Their bill is browner without the "teeth" and has no basal white line.<p>Subspecies P. a. atricollis has a wider brown culmen stripe on the bill than the nominate, red-brown ear coverts, and cinnamon-rusty thighs. P. a. wiedii's culmen stripe is slightly wider than the nominate's and it has chestnut ear coverts, chin, and upper throat instead of black.
Taxonomy
The black-necked aracari was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the toucans in the genus Ramphastos and coined the binomial name Ramphastos aracari. Linnaeus based his description on the "Aracari" that had been described and illustrated by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in 1648 and the "Toucan or Brazilian Pye" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist George Edwards in 1747. The black-necked aracari is now placed in genus Pteroglossus that was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pteron meaning "feather" with glōssa meaning "tongue". The specific epithet aracari comes from Arassari, the name of the species in the Tupi language. Alternative common names include Wied's aracari and Maximilian's aracari.<p>Three subspecies of black-necked aracari are recognized:<p>All three subspecies have at times been treated as individual species. Further subspecies divisions have been proposed but not accepted.
- Scientific name
- Pteroglossus aracari
- Authority
- (Linnaeus, 1758)
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Ramphastidae
- Genus
- Pteroglossus
Range and habitat
The subspecies of black-necked aracari are found thus:<p>The species inhabits a wide variety of semi-open landscapes including edges and clearings in wet and sand-ridge forests, secondary forest, woodlands, cerrado, gallery forest in savanna, and plantations of fruit trees like papaya. In elevation it mostly occurs from sea level to about 600 m (2,000 ft) but is found higher in Venezuela and the southeastern part of its range.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The black-necked aracari is believed to be a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The black-necked aracari forages in the forest's upper level and the canopy, often in a group of up to six that might be an extended family. It mostly feeds on fruit and is important as a disperser of fruit tree seeds. It also eats insects and has been observed taking a nestling bird.<p>The black-necked aracari's breeding season is from November to August in most of its range but spans September to February in the south. It nests in hollows in trees created by either woodpeckers or by broken tree branches. The clutch size is two to four eggs. The incubation period is 16 to 17 days and fledging occurs about 23 days after hatch. Both parents incubate the eggs and care for the young.<p>A common black-necked aracari call is "'tsee-eet' to 'sneet'...sometimes longer as 'tseeeeeee-it'". It also makes a "rattled 'bdd-dddit'" that might be vocal or from rattling the bill.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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