Lettered Aracari Pteroglossus inscriptus

Lettered Aracari is suspected to form a superspecies with Green Aracari (Pteroglossus viridis) of the Guiana Shield, while Lettered occurs, very widely, over southern and far western Amazonia, with a tiny outlying population in the Atlantic Forest of extreme northeast Brazil, in Pernambuco and Alagoas. The species inhabits primary lowland forest, including seasonally flooded areas and riverine forest within the cerrado region. It has been recorded to at least 1200 m in the foothills of the Andes, but chiefly is found some distance below this elevation. Lettered Aracari is principally green above, with a red rump, and yellow below, with a black head (rufous in females) marked by an extensive blue patch of orbital skin. The bill is largely yellow, with vertical black marks (script or "letters") along the cutting edge of the maxilla. The mandible also is marked with black, or, in the east Amazonian subspecies, is wholly black. This eastern subspecies occasionally has been regarded as a separate species, although the two subspecies interbreed in the region of the Rio Madeira in south central Amazonia.