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Gould's Toucanet | Selenidera gouldii
Goulds pepervreter | Tucanete de Gould | Saripoca-de-gould
Gould's Toucanet is a small toucan of Amazonia south of the Amazon, which in the guide area occurs only in eastern Bolivia. The male is black on the head and underparts, the female chestnut. The species is sometimes lumped with Spot-billed Toucanet of the Atlantic Forest.
Voice
A series of low, croaking notes, roughly ggrawnk to ggrraaw, also rendered as a deep pork-pork-pork.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
About 33 cm. The male has a black head, nape, throat and belly, bare greenish yellow to blue skin around the eye and a golden-yellow tuft behind it. The upperparts are green, with a yellow band on the lower hindneck. The flanks are yellow and the undertail coverts red; the green tail has chestnut tips. In the female the black parts are chestnut, the flanks yellower and the band on the back narrower. The bill is patterned black and ivory, with an orange-yellow tip; the female has a shorter bill. Juveniles are duller, with a less sharply marked bill.
Confusion species
Golden-collared Toucanet Selenidera reinwardtii in north-western Bolivia has a black bill with a green base, without ivory and without an orange-yellow tip. Spot-billed Toucanet Selenidera maculirostris of eastern Brazil has a pale bill with black spots and bars. Aracaris such as Chestnut-eared Aracari Pteroglossus castanotis are larger and longer-tailed, with yellow underparts crossed by a red band.
Habitat
Humid lowland forest and gallery forest, also palm forest, deciduous forest and secondary forest; on sandy soils also in lower forest. Up to about 800 m. It lives in pairs or small groups in the mid-storey and canopy. It eats mainly fruit, also insects. 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
Only in eastern Bolivia, in the lowlands of Santa Cruz and adjacent parts of Beni. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in central and eastern Brazil south of the Amazon, from the Madeira to the Atlantic coast and south to Mato Grosso.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In humid forest and gallery forest in northern and eastern Santa Cruz. Listen for the low, croaking calls from the mid-storey.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Deforestation in southern Amazonia is reducing numbers locally.
Scientific name
Selenidera gouldii | (Natterer, 1837)
Natterer described the species in 1837 as Pteroglossus Gouldii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Selenidera was introduced in 1837 by Gould. The genus name comes from Greek selēnē, 'moon', and deirē, 'neck', after the yellow crescent on the male's nape. The species name gouldii honours John Gould (1804–1881), English ornithologist and publisher of illustrated bird books, including a monograph of the toucans. The specimen the first description was based on came from Pará, Brazil.