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Pavonine Quetzal | Pharomachrus pavoninus
Pauwquetzal | Quetzal pavonino | Quetzal-pavão
The Pavonine Quetzal is the only quetzal of the Amazonian lowlands. The male is glossy green with a crimson belly and is the only quetzal with a red bill. It often sits still for long periods in the middle and upper canopy of tall forest and gives itself away mainly by its whistled song.
Voice
The song is a repeated, drawn-out whistle that first rises and then falls, sometimes followed by a short, dry guttural note. Also a cackling chatter.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
33 cm. The male is glossy metallic green on the head, breast and upperparts, with a crimson belly and undertail coverts. The long green uppertail coverts reach the tail tip but do not form a train. The tail is black from below. The bill is orange-red. The female is duller, with a browner head and breast, less red on the belly and a dark bill with a reddish base; the outer tail feathers may show fine pale bars from below.
Confusion species
Golden-headed Quetzal Pharomachrus auriceps has a yellow bill and lives in montane forest; in the foothills the two species may come close. Crested Quetzal Pharomachrus antisianus has a short crest on the forehead and, in the male, a white undertail, and lives higher in the Andes. The lowland trogons (genus Trogon) are smaller, with a shorter tail and in most species a white breast band or a barred undertail; none of them has a red bill.
Habitat
Tall humid lowland forest, mainly terra firme, but also várzea and foothill forest, from the lowlands to about 1000 m. It eats mainly fruit, plucked from branches while hovering, and also large insects. It nests in a cavity in a rotten tree trunk.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Amazonian lowlands of the south-east. In Ecuador in the eastern lowlands. In Peru in the Amazonian lowlands east of the Andes. In Bolivia in the north and centre of the lowlands. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela and in western and central Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen for the whistled song in the early morning and check fruiting trees in tall forest. From canopy towers, such as those at lodges in eastern Ecuador and south-eastern Peru, the bird can be seen at eye level.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species disappears where tall forest is cleared.
Scientific name
Pharomachrus pavoninus | (Spix, 1824)
Spix described the species in 1824 as Trogon pavoninus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pharomachrus was introduced in 1832 by De la Llave. The genus name comes from Greek pharos, 'mantle', and makros, 'long', after the long covert feathers. Latin pavoninus means 'peacock-like', after the green sheen of the plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Rio Negro, Amazonas, Brazil.