All species › Gamebirds › Guans, curassows and chachalacas › Red-faced Guan
Red-faced Guan | Penelope dabbenei
Roodmaskersjakohoen | Pava carirroja | Jacu-de-cara-vermelha
The Red-faced Guan is a large, dark guan of the montane forests of southern Bolivia and north-western Argentina. It has a small range along the southern Yungas and lives higher than most other guans, up into alder forest and the edges of Polylepis woodland.
Voice
Loud, harsh calls and a repeated, nasal honking, mainly in the morning. At dawn it makes a rattling wing sound when flying between trees.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
70 cm, with a long tail, a short crest and conspicuous red bare skin around the eye and cheek. A dewlap is absent or very small. The plumage is dark olive-brown; the forehead and crown are greyish, and the neck and breast have narrow white feather edges forming a streaked to scaled pattern. The belly is browner and plainer. The legs are reddish. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Yungas Guan Penelope bridgesi often lives lower, has blue-grey bare facial skin, an obvious red dewlap and dark legs. Andean Guan Penelope montagnii is smaller, with a grey-frosted face and a small dewlap, and occurs mainly further north. Sickle-winged Guan Chamaepetes goudotii has rufous underparts and blue bare facial skin, and is absent from southern Bolivia.
Habitat
Humid montane and cloud forest with alder (Alnus) and Podocarpus, the edges of Polylepis woodland and wooded riverbanks in mountain valleys, roughly between 1500 and 3000 m. It eats fruit, berries, leaves and buds, mainly in the canopy. The nest is a platform of twigs in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the southern Yungas of Chuquisaca and Tarija, locally into southern Santa Cruz. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in north-western Argentina (Jujuy and Salta).
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search alder forest and forest edges in the mountains of Tarija early in the morning, when birds often sit in the open in the crowns of fruiting trees.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The population is small and local, and suffers from hunting and the clearing and grazing of montane forest.
Scientific name
Penelope dabbenei | Hellmayr & Conover, 1942
Hellmayr & Conover described the species in 1942 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Penelope was introduced in 1786 by Merrem. The genus name comes from Greek mythology: Penelope was the daughter of the Spartan king Icarius and the wife of Odysseus. The species name honours Roberto Dabbene (1864–1938), Italian-Argentine ornithologist. The specimen the first description was based on came from Southern Bolivia or northern Argentina.