The cotingas are a large family, Cotingidae, of

suboscine The Tyranni (suboscines) are a suborder of passerine birds that includes more than 1,000 species, the large majority of which are South American. It is named after the type genus '' Tyrannus''. These have a different anatomy of the syrinx mus ...

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

birds found in

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. Cotingas are birds of forests or forest edges, that are primary frugivorous. They all have broad bills with hooked tips, rounded wings, and strong legs. They range in size from of the fiery-throated fruiteater (''Pipreola chlorolepidota'') up to of the

Amazonian umbrellabird The Amazonian umbrellabird (''Cephalopterus ornatus'') is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae native to the Amazon basin with a separate population on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The male bird is entirely black, with a black crest a ...

(''Cephalopterus ornatus'').

Description

Cotingas vary widely in social structure. There is a roughly 50/50 divide in the family between species with biparental care, and those in which the males play no part in raising the young. The purple-throated fruitcrow lives in mixed-sex groups in which one female lays an egg and the others help provide insects to the chick. In cotinga species where only the females care for the eggs and young, the males have striking courtship displays, often grouped together in

leks A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. A lek can also indicate an avail ...

. Such

sexual selection Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex ( ...

results in the males of these species, including the

Guianan cock-of-the-rock The Guianan cock-of-the-rock (''Rupicola rupicola'') is a species of cotinga, a passerine bird from South America. It is about in length and weighs about . It is found in tropical rainforests, near its preferred habitat of rocky outcrops. The ...

, being brightly coloured, or decorated with plumes or wattles, like the umbrellabirds, with their umbrella-like crest and long throat wattles. Other lekking cotingids like the bellbirds and screaming piha, have distinctive and far-carrying calls. In such

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...

-dwelling genera as '' Carpodectes'', ''

Cotinga The cotingas are a large family, Cotingidae, of suboscine passerine birds found in Central America and tropical South America. Cotingas are birds of forests or forest edges, that are primary frugivorous. They all have broad bills with hooked t ...

'', and '' Xipholena'', males gather high in a single tree or in adjacent trees, but male cocks-of-the-rock, as befits their more terrestrial lives, give their elaborate displays in leks on the ground. The females of both lekking and biparental species are duller than the males.

Breeding

Nests range from tiny to very large. Many species lay a single egg in a nest so flimsy that the egg can be seen from underneath. This may make the nests hard for predators to find. Fruiteaters build more solid cup nests, and the cocks-of-the-rock attach their mud nests to cliffs. The nests may be open cups or little platforms with loosely woven plant material, usually placed in a tree. The clutches comprise one to four eggs. Incubation typically takes 15-28 days. Fledging usually occurs at 28–33 days.

Habitat

Deserts, open woodlands, coastal mangroves, and humid tropical forests comprise their habitats. Cotingas face very serious threats from the loss of their habitats.

Taxonomy and systematics

The family Cotingidae was introduced by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1849. According to the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

, as of July 2021, the family contains 66 species divided into 24 genera. A 2014 molecular phylogenetic study of the cotingas by Jacob Berv and

Richard Prum Richard O. Prum (born 1961) is William Robertson Coe Professor of ornithology, and head curator of vertebrate zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. Life and work Prum describes himself as "an evolutionary ornithol ...

found that the genera formed five monophyletic clades and they proposed that the family could be divided into five subfamilies. In the above

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

, the genus ''Tijuca'' is not shown, as it was embedded in ''Lipaugus'', a position that was confirmed by a more detailed 2020 study. The genus ''Perissocephalus'' is also not shown as it was embedded in ''Cephalopterus''. A number of species previously placed in this family are now placed in the family

Tityridae Tityridae is family of suboscine passerine birds found in forest and woodland in the Neotropics. The 45 species in this family were formerly spread over the families Tyrannidae, Pipridae and Cotingidae (''see Taxonomy''). As yet, no widely ac ...

(genera '' Laniisoma'', ''

Laniocera ''Laniocera'' is a genus of passerine birds in the family Tityridae. It has traditionally been placed in the cotinga family, but evidence strongly suggest it is better placed in Tityridae,Iodopleura The purpletufts (''Iodopleura'') are a genus of birds in the family Tityridae. It has traditionally been placed in the cotinga family, but evidence strongly suggest it is better placed in Tityridae,''A classification of the bird species of South America.''
American Ornithologists' Union. Accessed 12 December 2007.

References

External links