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Golden-breasted Fruiteater | Pipreola aureopectus
Goudbuikcotinga | Frutero pechidorado | Anambé-de-peito-dourado
The Golden-breasted Fruiteater is a small, green fruit-eater of montane forest in northern Colombia and Venezuela. The male has no black on the head, which sets it apart from most related species. West of its range, on the Pacific slope, it is replaced by Orange-breasted Fruiteater.
Voice
Very high, thin, rising tseeee notes, which can be mistaken for an insect.
Recording: Ross Gallardy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
17–18 cm, with a short tail, a red bill and a pale iris. The male is grass green above; the throat and breast are golden yellow, the belly yellow with green streaks on the flanks. The tertials have whitish tips. The female is green above and has yellow underparts densely streaked green, without a golden breast.
Confusion species
The male Orange-breasted Fruiteater Pipreola jucunda has a black head and throat and an orange breast patch; the females of the two species are very similar, but their ranges barely overlap. The male Green-and-black Fruiteater Pipreola riefferii has a black head and throat and on average lives higher up.
Habitat
Humid montane forest and cloud forest, also forest edges and older secondary forest, at roughly 1200 to 2500 m. It eats mainly fruit and berries, and also insects. It often sits quietly in the middle storey and joins mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in Colombia: in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Serranía de Perijá and the Andes, mainly in the Central and Western Cordilleras, replaced on the Pacific slope by Orange-breasted Fruiteater. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the mountains of northern and western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in cloud forest along the road to the ridge, in mixed flocks, and in montane forest of the Central Cordillera. Listen for the high, thin call and scan the middle storey.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally fairly common; in parts of the Colombian Andes much montane forest has been converted to farmland.
Scientific name
Pipreola aureopectus | (de Lafresnaye, 1843)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1843 as Ampelis aureo-pectus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pipreola was introduced in 1838 by Swainson. The genus name is a Latin diminutive of the genus Pipra (manakins). The species name comes from Latin aureus, 'golden', and pectus, 'breast'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.