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The lettered aracari or lettered araçari (''Pteroglossus inscriptus'') is a
near-passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...
bird in the toucan family
Ramphastidae Toucans (, ) are Neotropical birds in the family Ramphastidae. They are most closely related to the Toucan barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and over 40 different species. ...
. It is found in
Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
,
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
,
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 ...
,
Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
, and
Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
.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 July 2022. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved July 24, 2022


Taxonomy and systematics

The
International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...
(IOC), the
Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...
, and the South American Classification Committee of the
American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...
(SACC) recognize two subspecies of lettered aracari: the
nominate Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list. Political office In th ...
''P. i. inscriptus'' ( Swainson, 1822) and ''P. i. humboldti'' ( Wagler, 1827).Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved November 10, 2022Remsen, 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 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022 ''P. i. humboldti'' had originally been described as a separate species, and later as a subspecies of
green aracari The green araçari (''Pteroglossus viridis''), is a toucan, a near-passerine bird. It is found in the lowland forests of northeastern South America (the Guiana Shield), in the northeast Amazon Basin, the Guianas and the eastern Orinoco River drain ...
(''P. viridis'').
BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
's ''
Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...
'' treats it as a species, "Humboldt's araçari". The SACC is soliciting a proposal to adopt that treatment.HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022 This article follows the IOC et al. two-subspecies model.


Description

The lettered aracari is long. The nominate subspecies weighs about and ''P. i. humboldti'' about . In both the male is larger than the female and has a longer bill. Their bills have a complex pattern. The nominate's has a mostly yellow
maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...
with a narrow black stripe on the culmen, a wide black tip, and a series of black "script" markings along its lower edge. Its
mandible In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...
is pale yellow with a wide black base and tip and a few black "script" markings near the tip. ''P. i. humboldti''s maxilla is like the nominate's but its mandible is almost entirely black.Shick, J. (2020). Lettered Aracari (''Pteroglossus inscriptus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.letara1.01 retrieved December 20, 2022 Nominate males have a black head except for bare blue, violet gray, and red skin around the eye. Their upperparts, wings, and tail are dark green except for a crimson rump. Their breast, belly, and undertail
coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind t ...
are yellow with pale buff cinnamon blotches. Their tibial feathers vary from green to half green and half pale yellow. Nominate females have chestnut on their throat and the sides of their head and neck; the throat's chestnut has a narrow black band below it. Immatures resemble pale versions of the adults. Both sexes of subspecies ''P. i. humboldti'' have plumage very like the nominates' except for cinnamon or rufous tibial feathers.


Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of lettered aracari is found in north central Brazil south of the Amazon River between the
Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...
and
Maranhão Maranhão () is a States of Brazil, state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of and it is divided into 217 municipalities. Clockwise from north, it ...
rivers and from there south to northern Bolivia and the Brazilian state of
Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – ) is one of the states of Brazil, the List of Brazilian states by area, third largest by area, located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible ...
and the upper
Tocantins River The Tocantins River ( , Parkatêjê dialect, Parkatêjê: ''Pyti'' ɨˈti is a river in Brazil, the central fluvial artery of the country. In the Tupi language, its name means "toucan's beak" (''Tukã'' for "toucan" and ''Ti'' for "beak"). It ...
. A small separate population is in the far eastern Brazilian states of Pernambuco and
Alagoas Alagoas () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco (N and NW); Sergipe (S); Bahia (SW); and the Atlantic Ocean (E). Its capital is ...
. ''P. i. humboldti'' is found in southern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, northwestern Bolivia, and western Brazil near the Amazon to the
Negro River In the English language, the term ''negro'' (or sometimes ''negress'' for a female) is a term historically used to refer to people of Black people, Black African heritage. The term ''negro'' means the color black in Spanish and Portuguese (from ...
and south a bit beyond the upper Madeira River. (Note that the map shows the distribution of only the nominate.) The species inhabits a variety of lowland evergreen forest types in the upper Amazon basin. These include '' várzea'', '' terra firme'', secondary and
gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...
s, and forested islands. In elevation it generally ranges as high as about but locally occurs as high as .


Behavior


Feeding

The lettered aracari forages mostly in the canopy but will descend to near the ground when following
army ant The name army ant (or legionary ant or ''marabunta'') is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limited ...
s. Small groups, which might be extended families, often forage together. Its diet is mostly fruit but it apparently also takes small
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 ...
s. It also predates other species' nests for eggs and young.


Breeding

The lettered aracari's nesting season appears to span from December to July in the western part of its range and from August to March in eastern Brazil. It is assumed to nest in tree cavities like other toucans. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.


Vocal and non-vocal sounds

The lettered aracari is not considered particularly vocal. Its song has variously been described as "an often long-continued series of guttural ''cha'' notes", as "a fast series of sharp ''kkik'' (or ''kkuk'', or ''kkek'') notes", and as "a series of electric grunts: ''jrnk jrnk jrnk…''". It also gives "single ''chak'' or ''kak'' notes." A non-vocal sound is a bill rattle "''bdddt''" that is thought to be used in agonistic encounters.


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 ...
follows HBW taxonomy and so has assessed the two subspecies of lettered aracari as separate species. Both are assessed as being of Least Concern. Both have large ranges and populations of unknown size that are believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats to either have been identified. The species is considered rare to fairly common in different parts of its range. It is "reliant on forested habitats, and so, although it tolerates advanced second growth, it is vulnerable in the long term to Amazonian deforestation."


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q794314 lettered aracari Birds of Southern Amazonia lettered aracari Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by William Swainson