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Guianan Puffbird | Notharchus macrorhynchos
Guyanabaardkoekoek | Buco picogordo oriental | Macuru-de-pescoço-branco
The Guianan Puffbird is a large black-and-white puffbird of the Guiana Shield. It was long treated as one species together with White-necked Puffbird and has been recognised as a separate species only since the split. It does not occur in the guide area; it is included here because its range lies within the map window.
Voice
Fairly quiet. The song is a long, high, rather weak trill, similar to that of White-necked Puffbird.
Recording: Nick Athanas — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
25 cm, with a large head and a very heavy, hook-tipped black bill. The crown, eye area, back, wings and tail are black. The forehead is white, but narrower than in White-necked Puffbird; a broad white collar encircles the neck. The throat and underparts are white, with a broad black breast band and black-barred flanks. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
White-necked Puffbird Notharchus hyperrhynchus is almost identical, with a broader white forehead, and replaces it to the west and south, including the whole guide area. Pied Puffbird Notharchus tectus is much smaller, with a white eyebrow and a white scapular stripe. Brown-banded Puffbird Notharchus ordii is smaller, with a brown band below the black breast band.
Habitat
The canopy and edges of humid lowland forest, open country with tall isolated trees and old secondary forest, mostly below 500 m. It perches high on an open branch and sallies for large insects and small lizards. It nests in a cavity in an arboreal termite nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Does not occur in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia or the Galápagos; older records from the guide area under this name refer to White-necked Puffbird. Outside the guide area in eastern Venezuela, the Guianas and north-eastern Brazil north of the Amazon.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Not to be seen in the guide area. In the Guianas it sits, like White-necked Puffbird, on bare branches above the canopy and at forest edges.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is large and still largely forested.
Scientific name
Notharchus macrorhynchos | (Gmelin, 1788)
Gmelin described the species in 1788 as Bucco macrorhynchos; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Notharchus was introduced in 1863 by Cabanis & Heine. The genus name combines Greek nōthēs, 'sluggish', and arkhos, 'leader' or 'chief'. The species name macrorhynchos comes from Greek makros, 'large, long', and rhunkhos, 'bill': 'large-billed'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.