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Yellow-eared Toucanet | Selenidera spectabilis
Geeloorpepervreter | Tucancillo orejiamarillo
The Yellow-eared Toucanet is a medium-sized toucan of humid foothill forest from Honduras to Panama and the only Selenidera toucanet in the guide area. The male has a black head and underparts with a yellow ear patch. The birds usually live in pairs in the middle tree layer and are quieter and less conspicuous than the aracaris.
Voice
A repeated dry, rattling tikit-krrrrr or a frog-like rasping krrrk, often in a long series.
Recording: Iván Lau — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
33–38 cm. The male has a black crown, head, neck and underparts, with a yellow stripe behind the eye and a yellow tuft on the flanks. Back and wings olive green, tail dark, undertail coverts red. The bare skin around the eye is yellow-green to blue-green. The bill is relatively short and mostly blackish, with a pale yellow-green ridge on the upper mandible. The female has a chestnut crown and nape instead of black.
Confusion species
Northern Emerald Toucanet Aulacorhynchus prasinus is entirely green and usually lives higher in the mountains. Collared Aracari Pteroglossus torquatus has yellow underparts with red and black and a pale upper mandible. Keel-billed Toucan Ramphastos sulfuratus and Yellow-throated Toucan Ramphastos ambiguus are much larger, with a yellow throat and breast.
Habitat
Humid foothill forest and lowland rainforest, including the rainforest of Darién, old secondary forest and forest edges; mostly between about 100 and 1500 m, most numerous in the foothills. It lives in pairs or small groups in the middle and upper tree layers and eats mainly fruit, also insects. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean side of Honduras and Nicaragua and the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica; in Panama on the Caribbean side and in the central and eastern part also on the Pacific side, to Darién. Outside the guide area in western Colombia and north-western Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Most often seen in the foothills of the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica, as at Braulio Carrillo, and in Panama at Cerro Azul. It often sits still in the middle tree layer; the rattling call gives it away.
Conservation status
Least Concern. It disappears where foothill forest is cleared but has a large range.
Scientific name
Selenidera spectabilis | Cassin, 1858
Cassin described the species in 1858 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Selenidera was introduced in 1837 by Gould. Selenidera is Greek, from selēnē 'moon' and deirē 'neck', after the yellow crescent-shaped band on the neck. spectabilis is Latin for 'remarkable, showy', after the striking, contrasting plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cucuyos de Veragua, Panama.