The black guan (''Chamaepetes unicolor'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the chachalaca, guan, and curassow family

Cracidae The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches southernmost parts of Texas in the Unite ...

. It is found in Costa Rica and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The black guan shares the genus ''Chamaepetes'' with the sickle-winged guan (''C. goudotii'') of western South America and may form a superspecies with it.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021 A black guan

Description

The black guan is long and weighs about . Adults have all black plumage with contrasting bright blue facial skin around a red eye. Their legs and feet are pinkish-red. Juveniles are similar but less glossy and their underparts browner and their facial skin is blackish or dark brown.del Hoyo, J. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Black Guan (''Chamaepetes unicolor''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blagua1.01 retrieved September 26, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The black guan is found from the

Cordillera de Guanacaste The Cordillera de Guanacaste, also called Guanacaste Cordillera, are a volcanic mountain range in northern Costa Rica near the border with Nicaragua. The mountain range stretches 110 km from northwest to the southeast and contains mostly com ...

in northern Costa Rica to western

Coclé Province Coclé () is a province of central Panama on the nation's southern coast. The administrative capital is the city of Penonomé. This province was created by the Act of September 12, 1855 with the title of Department of Coclé during the presidenc ...

in Panama. It inhabits

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud ...

in the Talamancan montane forest ecozone. It prefers steep terrain in the temperate, subtropical, and tropical zones, usually between about of elevation, but in some areas as low as and in others as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The black guan is thought to be mainly sedentary but there is some evidence of seasonal elevation changes.

Feeding

The black guan forages singly, in pairs, or in small groups. Its primary diet is fruits; studies in Costa Rica have identified at least 35 different species eaten. It mostly feeds in trees but will also eat fallen fruit on the ground.

Breeding

The black guan's breeding season is believed to span from February to June. The one described nest was a small platform of twigs and leaves placed in a clump of epiphytes in a tree above the ground. The clutch size is two or three eggs.

Vocal and non-vocal sounds

The black guan's vocalizations include piping calls in the breeding season, a "a low, deep 'ro-rooo' or coughing 'kowr' if disturbed", and a "tsik tsik..." alarm call. At dawn and dusk it gives a "loud, sharp, crackling" wing-rattling display.

Status

The IUCN has assessed the black guan as being of Least Concern. In Costa Rica it is fairly common in protected areas but in Panama only locally "rather numerous". However, even where nominally protected it is heavily hunted for food.

References

External links

* * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q748732 black guan black guan Birds of the Talamancan montane forests black guan black guan Taxonomy articles created by Polbot