Order
Tinamiformes
Family
Tinamidae
Genus
Nothocercus
 
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Version 1.0

This is a historic version of this account.  Current version

SPECIES

Highland Tinamou Nothocercus bonapartei

Vitor Gomes and Guy M. Kirwan
Version: 1.0 — Published February 21, 2014

Distribution

Distribution in the Americas

The range of Highland Tinamou includes the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama, the coastal cordillera of northern Venezuela, and the Andes from Venezuela south to northern Peru. It is resident throughout the highlands of Costa Rica (north to the Cordillera de Guanacaste) and in western Panama, east to Boquete in Chiriquí (Wetmore 1965, Ridgely and Gwynne 1989, Stiles and Skutch 1989). Highland Tinamou also occurs in the coastal cordillera of northern Venezuela, east to Aragua; in the northern and southern Andes of Venezuela (but scarce or absent in the central portion of the Venezuelan Andes): and in the Serranía de Perijá, on the Colombia/Venezuela border (Phelps and Phelps 1958, Hilty 2003). In Colombia, Highland Tinamou occurs in the Serranía de Perijá, and in all three cordilleras of the Andes (Meyer de Schauensee 1948, Hilty and Brown 1986). Distribution in Peru of Highland Tinamou. Solid circles: specimen records; open circles: sight records; dotted line: 1000 m contour (Schulenberg et al. 2006)Highland Tinamou is restricted to the east slope of the Andes in Ecuador (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001a), and the reaches its southern limit on the east slope of the Andes in northern Peru, north of the Río Marañón (Meyer de Schauensee 1966, Schulenberg et al. 2010).

The elevational range of Highland Tinamou in Costa Rica is above 1200 m (Stiles and Skutch 1989); 1500-2200 m in Colombia, but locally down to as low as 700 m on the Pacific slope, and to 500 m in the eastern Andes (Hilty and Brown 1986); 1300-2500 m in Venezuela (Hilty 2003); and 1600-2200 m in Ecuador (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001a), although there is record to as high as 3075 m (Krabbe et al. 1997).

Distribution outside the Americas

Endemic to the Americas.

Habitat

Highland Tinamou occurs on the ground in humid montane forest, and usually remains concealed within dense undergrowh (Stiles and Skutch 1989). It is somewhat local in distribution, and is more prevalent at sites with seeding bamboo (Fjeldså and Krabbe 1990), and near ravines and other areas with dense vegetation (Hilty 2003).

Historical changes

None reported.

Fossil history

None reported.

Distribution of the Highland Tinamou - Range Map
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  • Year-round
  • Migration
  • Breeding
  • Non-Breeding
Distribution of the Highland Tinamou

Recommended Citation

Gomes, V. and G. M. Kirwan (2014). Highland Tinamou (Nothocercus bonapartei), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.higtin1.01