''Capito'' is a genus 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 ...

s in the family

Capitonidae The New World barbets are a family, Capitonidae, of 15 birds in the order Piciformes, which inhabit humid forests in Central and South America. They are closely related to the toucans. The New World barbets are plump birds, with short necks and ...

. They are found in humid

forests A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological functio ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, with a single species extending into eastern

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

. Slightly larger than the members of the genus ''

Eubucco ''Eubucco'' is a genus of colourful birds in the family Capitonidae. They are found in humid forest in South America, South and Central America, and the species have almost entirely Allopatric, allo- or parapatric distributions. Slightly smaller ...

'', members of the genus ''Capito'' are all

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

and thickset, and have stubby pale bills that often are tipped black. With the exception of the somewhat aberrant scarlet-crowned barbet, black, red, orange, yellow and white are the dominating colours in their

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

, and males have at least partially black backs. Typically seen singly or in pairs, they are primarily

frugivorous A frugivore ( ) is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance ...

, but also take

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

Species

References

* Schulenberg, T., D. Stotz, D. Lane, J. O'Neill, & T. Parker III. (2007). ''Birds of Peru.''

Christopher Helm Publishers A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing ''Who's Who'' since 1849 and the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' between 1827 and 1903. It offers a wide variety of boo ...

. Bird genera Taxa named by Louis Pierre Vieillot Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Piciformes-stub