The pale-headed jacamar (''Brachygalba goeringi'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Galbulidae The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical The Neotro ...

. It is found in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The pale-headed jacamar is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

. It and the dusky-backed (''B. salmoni''),

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

(''B. lugubris''), and

white-throated jacamar The white-throated jacamar (''Brachygalba albogularis'') is a species of bird in the family Galbulidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru.Tobias, J., T. Züchner, T.A. de Melo Júnior, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). White-throated Jacamar (''Br ...

s (''B. albogularis'') form a

superspecies In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

.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 19 January 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 19, 2021

Description

The pale-headed jacamar is long and weighs . The male's crown, nape, and shoulders are ashy brown. The rest of the upper parts are dark brown glossed with greenish; they look blue-black when worn. It has a pale

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also k ...

and a buffy-white throat. It has a chestnut band on the upper belly and dark brown flanks; the rest of the underparts are white. The female is almost identical. The juvenile has a gray crown and nape, and the upper parts are brighter and the green gloss stronger.Tobias, J., T. Züchner, and T.A. de Melo Júnior (2020). Pale-headed Jacamar (''Brachygalba goeringi''), 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.pahjac1.01 retrieved May 8, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The pale-headed jacamar is found from Arauca and

Casanare Department Casanare (, ) is a department located in the central eastern of Colombia. It is famous for its oil and natural gas production as well as its livestock and extensive plains. It is also the tenth largest department with an area of 44,490 km2, ...

s in Colombia north through northwestern Venezuela at least to Lara. It primarily inhabits the edges of gallery and

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

in ''

llanos The Llanos ( Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, ...

'' grasslands. In elevation it ranges as high as but is usually found much lower.

Behavior

Feeding

The pale-headed jacamar's diet is insects, mostly

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

and

Odonata Odonata is an order of predatory flying insects that includes the dragonflies and damselflies (as well as the '' Epiophlebia'' damsel-dragonflies). The two major groups are distinguished with dragonflies (Anisoptera) usually being bulkier with ...

. It often perches on emergent branches in pairs or small family groups and sallies from there to catch its flying prey.

Breeding

The pale-headed jacamar nests in burrows in earth banks. Nesting has been noted in Venezuela during April and May.

Vocalization

The pale-headed jacamar's song is a series of high "weet" notes that increase in speed and pitch and ends with a tril

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the pale-headed jacamar as being of Least Concern. It is " mmon throughout its range..." and " specific threats redocumented so far, despite overall habitat loss in certain areas as a result of deforestation.

References

External links

Pale-headed jacamar videos
on the Internet Bird Collection

VIREO ttp://vireo.acnatsci.org/species_image.php?species=Brachygalba+goeringi Photo-Medium Res* ttp://home.scarlet.be/~tse98017/phjacam.jpg Photobr>Article
home.scarlet.be
Picture
classicnatureprints {{Taxonbar, from=Q1273654 Brachygalba Birds of Venezuela Birds of Colombia Birds described in 1869 Taxa named by Philip Sclater Taxa named by Osbert Salvin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot