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Choco Toucan | Ramphastos brevis
Chocótoekan | Tucán del Chocó | Tucano-do-chocó
The Choco Toucan is a toucan of the humid forest on the Pacific side of Colombia and Ecuador. In plumage and bill it is a smaller version of the eastern form of Yellow-throated Toucan, but it differs clearly in its croaking call. It is one of the characteristic species of the Chocó region.
Voice
A croaking, frog-like krreek or krrek-krrek, repeated at length from a high branch while the head swings up and down. Also dry bill-clattering.
Recording: Daan van der Hoeven — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
46 cm, with a large, two-toned bill. The plumage is black, with a bright yellow throat and breast bordered below by a narrow white and a broader red band. The uppertail coverts are white, the undertail coverts red. The upper mandible is yellow; the lower mandible and a diagonal band across the base of the upper mandible are black. Bare greenish skin surrounds the eye. The sexes are alike, but the female has a shorter bill. Juveniles are duller, with a smaller bill.
Confusion species
Yellow-throated Toucan Ramphastos ambiguus shares its range with the western form, which is larger, has a chestnut rather than black lower mandible and gives a yelping call instead of croaks. Keel-billed Toucan Ramphastos sulfuratus in northern Colombia has a multicoloured bill with green, orange and red. Collared Aracari Pteroglossus torquatus and Pale-mandibled Aracari Pteroglossus erythropygius are much smaller and slimmer, with a black head and a yellow belly with a red-and-black band.
Habitat
Humid and wet forest in the lowlands and foothills, mainly in the canopy and at forest edges, and also secondary forest and semi-open country with tall trees, shade coffee and cacao. From sea level to about 1000 m, locally higher. It lives in pairs or small groups. It eats mainly fruit, but also insects and small vertebrates. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Pacific lowlands and the foothills of the Western Cordillera, from the Chocó southwards. In Ecuador in the western lowlands and foothills, south into the south-west of the country. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area at most in extreme eastern Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In forest reserves in north-western Ecuador, such as around Milpe and in Esmeraldas, birds call in the morning from tall, bare trees. Listen to the call: croaking means Choco Toucan, yelping means Yellow-throated Toucan.
Conservation status
Least Concern, but its habitat is shrinking through deforestation, especially in western Ecuador. Hunted locally.
Scientific name
Ramphastos brevis | Meyer de Schauensee, 1945
Meyer de Schauensee described the species in 1945 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Ramphastos was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. The genus name comes from Greek rhamphēstēs, 'snouted, large-billed', from rhamphē, 'bill'. The species name brevis is Latin for 'short', after the shorter bill compared with Ramphastos ambiguus. The specimen the first description was based on came from Río Mechengue, Cauca, Colombia.