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Guianan Trogon | Trogon violaceus
Guyanatrogon | Trogón violáceo | Surucuá-violáceo
The Guianan Trogon is a small, yellow-bellied trogon of the Guiana Shield: eastern Venezuela, the Guianas and adjacent northern Brazil. In the guide area it occurs barely or not at all. It was formerly treated as one species together with Gartered and Amazonian Trogons, and many older records from the guide area refer to the latter.
Voice
A long series of fast, hollow whistles, kew-kew-kew-kew, at an even pace. Also rolling, chattering calls.
Recording: Ricardo Gagliardi — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
23–25 cm. The male has a violet-blue head and breast with a black mask and throat, and bare yellow skin around the eye. A narrow white band separates the breast from the yellow belly. The upperparts are metallic green, and the wing looks dark greyish brown through fine black-and-white vermiculation. The undertail is finely barred black and white with broad white tips. The female is dark grey on the head and upperparts, with white crescents above and below the eye and a duller yellow belly.
Confusion species
Amazonian Trogon Trogon ramonianus of Amazonia is very similar and in the field is told mainly by range and voice. Green-backed Trogon Trogon viridis is larger; the male has a pale blue eye-ring and a largely white undertail. Amazonian Black-throated Trogon Trogon rufus has a green head and breast in the male; the female is brown.
Habitat
Edges and clearings of humid lowland forest, gallery forest, secondary forest and woodland patches in savanna. It eats fruit and insects, taken in a fluttering sally from a branch. It excavates a nest cavity in a wasp, ant or termite nest or in rotten wood.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In the guide area at most in the far east of Colombia, along the Orinoco on the border with Venezuela; its occurrence there is not certain. Records from Colombian Amazonia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia almost certainly refer to Amazonian Trogon. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in eastern Venezuela, Trinidad, the Guianas and adjacent northern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
A small yellow-bellied trogon in the Amazonian lowlands of the guide area is almost always Amazonian Trogon. Only in the far east of Colombia, near the Orinoco, can Guianan Trogon be expected; listen to the voice there and document any record carefully.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated as a separate species. Elsewhere in its range locally common to scarce.
Scientific name
Trogon violaceus | Gmelin, 1788
Gmelin described the species in 1788 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Trogon was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. The genus name comes from Greek trōgōn, 'nibbling', from trōgō, 'to gnaw'; trogons gnaw out their nest holes in rotten wood. Violaceus is Latin for 'violet', after the male's purplish-blue head and breast. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.