Mountain Trogon
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The mountain trogon (''Trogon mexicanus''), also known as the Mexican trogon, is a
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
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 Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
Trogonidae. First described by
William Swainson William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swains ...
in 1827, it is resident in
Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
,
Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...
, and
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
and has occurred in
El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...
as a
vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...
. Like all trogons, the mountain trogon is
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 ...
. The male is metallic green on the crown, nape, upperparts and chest, the latter separated from its bright red belly and vent by a narrow band of white. The female is warm brown on the head, upperparts and chest, separated from its paler brown lower chest and red belly and vent by a narrow white band. Its natural
habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...
is subtropical and tropical moist
montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...
s. It prefers
pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...
-evergreen and pine-
oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
woodland between in elevation. Unlike some rarer trogons, this species shows some adaptability to human land use and has utilized
coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
s with suitable shade trees like
oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
s.


Taxonomy

When he first described the mountain trogon in 1827 from a specimen collected in Temascáltepec, Mexico, William Swainson gave the species its current scientific name. Most ornithologists have agreed with this assignment, though
Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist, and a nephew of Napoleon. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal ...
assigned it to the genus ''Trogonurus'', and several other ornithologists described it again later under other names. It has three subspecies: *''T. m. clarus'' was described by
Ludlow Griscom Ludlow Griscom (June 17, 1890 – May 28, 1959) was an American ornithologist known as a pioneer in field ornithology. His emphasis on the identification of free-flying birds by field marks became widely adopted by professionals and amateurs. M ...
in 1932. *''T. m. lutescens'' was also described by Griscom in 1932. *''T. m. mexicanus'' was described by Swainson in 1827.
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
studies have shown that the mountain trogon is part of the "Elegant" sub-clade of the genus ''Trogon''—along with the elegant trogon, the collared trogon, the black-throated trogons ( Amazonian,
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
, choco, and northern) and the masked trogon—but have not revealed which species are its closest relatives. The genus name ''Trogon'' is a
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
word meaning "grawing" or "nibbling". This may be a reference to the way trogons gnaw into rotting trees to make their nest holes. The
species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...
''mexicanus'' means "Mexico", a reference to where the first specimen was collected.


Description

The mountain trogon measures in length. It weighs between , with a mean of . Like all trogons, it is
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 ...
. The adult male is green on the crown, nape and upperparts; the upper side of its tail is bluish-green, with black tips to the rectrices. His face and throat are blackish, with an orange-red orbital ring and a bright yellow bill. He is green on the chest and red on the belly and undertail; the two colors are separated by a narrow band of white. The underside of his tail is black with three large white blocks created by white tips to the outer rectrices. His
primaries Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...
are blackish, with black and white vermiculations on the wing coverts. The female is warm brown on her head and upperparts; her tail is rufous-brown on the upperside, with black tips to the rectrices. She has a small white crescent in front of her eye and a bold white crescent behind her eye. Her bill is dark above. Her chest is warm brown, separated from her brown lower chest and red belly by a narrow band of white. Her undertail is black and white; the outer webs of the rectrices are barred black and white, while the inner webs are black, broadly tipped with white. Her primaries are blackish with white outer webs, which form white streaks along her folded wing. Her wing coverts are pale brown, with dusky vermiculations.


Similar species

There are several species with which the mountain trogon might be confused; they differ primarily in the color and patterning on their tails. The male elegant trogon's tail is copper-colored (rather than green) above and finely vermiculated black and white (rather than all black) below, while the female has a white patch behind and below her eye. The male collared trogon is golden-green on the back and uppertail, and its undertail is black with narrow white barring. The female collared trogon's tail is grayish below with a narrow dark bar at the tip of each rectrice.


Range and habitat

The mountain trogon is found in the highlands of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Although it was formerly recorded as a resident in El Salvador, the area where it was found was ceded to Honduras in 1992 and it now occurs in El Salvador only as a
vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...
. It also occurs in Nicaragua, though the origin of these birds is uncertain. The ornithological collection at
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
contains a mountain trogon that was purportedly shot in Texas, but the species is not on the list of accepted North American birds. Found at elevations ranging from , the mountain trogon prefers pine or pine-oak woodlands and
cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...
.


Behavior

The mountain trogon may associate with mixed species flocks. It joins such flocks sporadically and in small numbers, but is an active member of the flock, moving in the upper and middle levels of the forest, when it is present.


Food and feeding

The mountain trogon eats insects and small fruits, which it catches or plucks while on the wing.


Breeding

Like all trogons, the mountain trogon is a cavity nester. It is both a primary and secondary cavity nester, meaning that it both excavates its own nest cavities, and uses those cavities already excavated by another species. When it excavates its own nest, it uses its beak to gnaw a hole in rotting wood, either in a decaying stump or branch. The cavity is typically less than off the ground, but occasionally as high as . When it uses a cavity made by another species, it typically uses those made by large woodpeckers. The female lays two white
egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...
s, which both parents incubate, though the female does far longer stints than the male. The eggs hatch after .


Voice

The mountain trogon has several vocalizations. If alarmed, it gives a sharp, low-pitched call variously transcribed as "''cut''" or "''tuck''". In flight, it gives a quick, low-pitched call transcribed as "''cut-a-cut-cut''". When perched, it makes a slow, repetitive "''cowh''" or a "''tucka-tucka-tucka''". Young mountain trogons make quiet hissing calls when food begging, and when approached by potential predators.


Conservation and threats

Because of its large range and large population, estimated to number between 50,000 and , the mountain trogon is rated as a species of
least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature 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 stat ...
. Its population appears to be stable.


References


Cited works

*


External links

* * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1275505 mountain trogon Birds of Mexico Birds of Guatemala Birds of Honduras mountain trogon Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by William Swainson