Order
Piciformes
Family
Ramphastidae
Genus
Aulacorhynchus
 
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Version 1.0

This is a historic version of this account.  Current version

SPECIES

Southern Emerald-Toucanet Aulacorhynchus albivitta

Thomas S. Schulenberg, A. M. Contreras-González, Claudia I. Rodríguez-Flores, Carlos A. Soberanes-González, Marîa del Coro Arizmendi, and Kolten Powell
Version: 1.0 — Published September 15, 2017

Systematics

Geographic Variation

Up to 7 subspecies of Southern Emerald-Toucanet are recognized, which primarily vary in the color of the throat and of the bill. These subspecies can be divided into up to 4 groups (which sometimes are recognized as separate species; see also Related Species). The following short descriptions are based on Haffer (1974) and Short and Horne (2001), except where otherwise noted:

"Santa Marta Toucanet" group, composed of a single subspecies. Characterized by a pale gray throat. The bill is mostly black, with a yellow strioe along the culmen. Orbital skin orange-grown or gray.

lautus, described as Aulacorhamphus lautus Bangs 1898; type locality San Miguel, Santa Marta mountains, Colombia

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

"Andean Toucanet" group, composed of two subspecies.

albivitta, described as Pteroglossus albivitta Boissonneau 1840

Andes of northwestern Venezuela, east slope of Central Andes and both slopes of Eastern Andes of Colombia, and eastern Andes of Ecuador (except for southeast)

Characterized by a white throat. Feathers surrounding the bare orbital skin (which is yellow to orange) are blue. The bill is mostly black, with a broad yellow stripe on the culmen; there also often is some chestnut or marroon near the base of the mandible.

phaeolaemus, described as Aulacorhamphus phaelæmus Gould 1874; type locality Concordia in Colombia and Mérida in Venezuela; restricted by Hellmayr (1911: 1213) as the western Andes of Colombia (see also Haffer 1974: 196).

Western Andes, Colombia (except for the northern end)

Throat pale blue. Bill mostly black, with a broad yellow stripe along the culmen, and some chestnut near the base of the mandible; vertical stripe at base of bill white.

"Gray-throated Toucanet" group, composed of a single subspecies. Characterized by a pale gray throat. Bill mostly black, with a broad yellow stripe along the culmen, and some chestnut near the base of the mandible; vertical stripe at base of bill white.

griseigularis, described as Aulocorhynchus [sic] albivitta griseigularis Chapman 1915; type locality Santa Elena, Colombia

northern portion of Western Andes, and the west slope of the Central Andes, of Colombia

"Black-throated Toucanet" group, composed of 3 subspecies. Characterized by deep blue (cyanolaemus) or black (atrogularis, dimidiatus) throat. Bill mostly black, with broad yellow stripe on culmen (or, in cyanolaemus, yellow restricted to tip of maxilla).

cyanolaemus, described as Aulacorhamphus cyanolæmus Gould 1866; type locality Loxa [Loja], Ecuador

east slope of the Andes of southeastern Ecuador and northern Peru. Some specimens from south of the Rio Marañon in northern Peru were thought by Haffer (1974) to represent intergrades with atrogularis; these specimens are large and have blue throats (as in cyanolaeamus), but have intermediate bill colors. The distributions of these two subspecies are not yet known to be in contact (see Distribution), although this apparent gap may be an artifact of incomplete sampling. The elevational distributions of cyanolaemus and atrogularis also are different, however, further suggesting that there may be little or not direct introgression between these two taxa.

atrogularis, described as Pteroglossus atrogularis Sturm 1841; type locality "Andes of Peru", restricted by Cory (1919: 380) to Chanchamayo, Peru

east slope of the Andes from central Peru to Bolivia. Some specimens from south of the Rio Maranon in northern Peru were thought by Haffer (1974) to represent intergrades with cyanolaemus; these specimens are large and have blue throats (as in cyanolaemus), so not show any evidence of introgression in plumages, but the bills of these specimens are more extensively yellow than is typical of cyanolaemus. As pointed out by Dan Lane (personal communication to TSS), however, "cyanolaemus and atrogularis seem to occupy distinctly different elevational ranges (the former 1100-2000m, above A. derbianus [Chestnut-tipped Toucanet], the latter lowlands up to about 800m, below A. derbianus) makes me doubt that the two have much opportunity to intergrade".

dimidiatus, described as Aulacorhamphus dimidiatus Ridgway 1886; type locality presumed to be "some portion of the Upper Orinoco region, in Venezuela, or contiguous portion of the Rio Negro basin" , but Hellmayr (1920) suspected that it originated from northern Peru, and O'Neill and Gardner (1974) concluded that the type locality "must be along the eastern foothills of the Andes of central southern Peru".

foothills of the Andes and adjacent western Amazonia in southeastern Peru and northern Bolivia. Differs from atrogularis primarily by smaller size, especially by the shorter bill.

Subspecies


EBIRD GROUP (POLYTYPIC)

Aulacorhynchus albivitta lautus


EBIRD GROUP (POLYTYPIC)

Aulacorhynchus albivitta griseigularis


EBIRD GROUP (POLYTYPIC)

Aulacorhynchus albivitta albivitta/phaeolaemus


EBIRD GROUP (POLYTYPIC)

Aulacorhynchus albivitta cyanolaemus


EBIRD GROUP (POLYTYPIC)

Aulacorhynchus albivitta atrogularis/dimidiatus

Related Species

Phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequence data, from both mitochondrial and nuclear genes, indicates that the Aulacorhynchus prasinus complex sensu lato (Aulacorhynchus prasinus Northern Emerald-Toucanet and Aulacorhynchus albivitta) is sister to all other members of Aulacorhynchus (Bonaccorso et al. 2011).

The Aulacorhynchus prasinus complex consists of ca 15 taxa, distributed from Mexico south to Bolivia. The number of species recognized among these 15 taxa varies from one (Peters 1948, Haffer 1974, Short and Horne 2001) or two (Chesser et al. 2017) to five (Winker 2016), six (del Hoyo and Collar 2014), or eight (Navarro et al. 2001, Puebla-Olivares et al. 2008, Bonaccorso et al. 2011). All authors are in broad agreement that the 15 taxa in this complex can be arranged into seven or eight major groups (see Geographic Variation for prasinus and albivitta). The wide disparity stems in part from the adoption of differing species concepts, with adherents of a biological species concept recognizing few species than do those who accept a phylogenetic or evolutionary species concept. In any event, the major groups in the prasinus complex sensu lato usually are allopatric, so direct tests of reproductive isolation are not possible. Two taxa in Aulacorhynchus albivitta, cyanolaemus and atrogularis, are reported to hybridize where they meet in northern Peru (Haffer 1974), but these two taxa typically occur at different elevations (see Distribution), and so hybridization may be much less frequent than is assumed (see comments by Dan Lane in Geographic Variation).

Recommended Citation

Schulenberg, T. S., A. M. Contreras-González, C. I. Rodríguez-Flores, C. A. Soberanes-González, M. d. C. Arizmendi, and K. Powell (2017). Southern Emerald-Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus albivitta), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.souemt1.01