All species › Woodpeckers and allies › Toucans › Hooded Mountain Toucan
Hooded Mountain Toucan | Andigena cucullata
Zwartkopbergtoekan | Tucán andino encapuchado | Tucano-andino-de-capuz
The Hooded Mountain Toucan is the southernmost of the mountain toucans and lives in the humid Yungas forest of south-eastern Peru and Bolivia. It is identified by its all-black head and its yellowish green bill with a black tip. It lives in pairs or small groups in the canopy of montane forest, up to just below the treeline.
Voice
A slow series of plaintive, nasal peeeeah notes, as well as short tik calls. Song and calls are often accompanied by bill-clapping.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
48–50 cm, with a large bill that is mostly yellowish green, with a black tip and a black spot at the base of the lower mandible. The head and neck are black, with bare, pale blue skin around the eye. The mantle is olive-brown to chestnut, the wings are green and the rump is yellow. The underparts are blue-grey, the thighs rufous and the undertail coverts red. The tail is blackish with chestnut tips. The sexes are alike, but the female has a shorter bill; juveniles are duller, with a less sharply marked bill.
Confusion species
Grey-breasted Mountain Toucan Andigena hypoglauca lives further north in the Andes and has only a black crown and nape, a blue-grey throat and a bill with red, black and yellowish green. Blue-banded Toucanet Aulacorhynchus coeruleicinctis in the same Yungas forest is much smaller and mainly green, with a blue band across the breast. Toucans of the genus Ramphastos live much lower and are black with a yellow or white throat.
Habitat
Humid, mossy montane forest and cloud forest of the Yungas, also forest edges, mostly between 2400 and 3300 m, locally from 2000 m. It lives in the canopy and mid-storey, in pairs or small groups. 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 on the eastern slope of the Andes: in Peru in the south-east (mainly Puno), in Bolivia in the Yungas from La Paz to Cochabamba. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos, and does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the roads through the cloud forest of the Yungas above La Paz and in Cochabamba, especially at fruiting trees. Pairs call in the early morning from high branches and then give themselves away by their plaintive notes and bill-clapping.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small, but the population is believed to be stable; clearance of Yungas forest plays a role locally.
Scientific name
Andigena cucullata | (Gould, 1846)
Gould described the species in 1846 as Pteroglossus cucullatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Andigena was introduced in 1851 by Gould. The genus name comes from the Andes and Latin -gena, 'born in', thus 'Andes-born'. The species name comes from Latin cucullatus, 'hooded', for the black head. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cocapata, Cochabamba, Bolivia.