The sharpbill (''Oxyruncus cristatus'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird that is placed in its own family Oxyruncidae. It was formerly placed in the family

Tityridae Tityridae is family of suboscine passerine birds found in forest and woodland in the Neotropics. The 45 species in this family were formerly spread over the families Tyrannidae, Pipridae and Cotingidae (''see Taxonomy (biology), Taxonomy''). As y ...

. Its range is from the mountainous areas of tropical

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 ...

and southern

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

(

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 ...

and

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

). It inhabits the canopy of wet forest and feeds on

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

and some

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s. It has an orange erectile crest, black-spotted yellowish underparts and scaling on the head and neck. As its name implies, it has a straight, pointed beak, which gives its common name. Sharpbills are most commonly found in tall dense forests but occasionally venture to the forest edge. Their diet consists of primarily of fruit, but they will also take insects, hanging upside down in from twigs to obtain insect

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e. They will also travel in

mixed-species feeding flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s with

ovenbirds Ovenbirds or furnariids are a large family of small suboscine passerine birds found from Mexico and Central America, Central to southern South America. They form the family Furnariidae. This is a large family containing around 321 species and 71 ...

tanager The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family (biology), family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12 ...

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family (biology), family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme ...

s and

cotinga The cotingas are a large family, Cotingidae, of suboscine passerine birds found in Central America and tropical South America. Cotingas are birds of forests or forest edges, that are primary frugivorous. They all have broad bills with hooked ti ...

s. The breeding system employed by this species is

polygamous Polygamy (from Late Greek , "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one h ...

with closely grouped males displaying in from a lek. The nest of the sharpbill is built by the female and is a small cup built on a slender branch. Chicks are fed by regurgitation.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Oxyruncus'' was erected by the Dutch zoologist

Coenraad Jacob Temminck Coenraad Jacob Temminck (; 31 March 1778 – 30 January 1858) was a Dutch people, Dutch patrician, Zoology, zoologist and museum director. Biography Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. Fro ...

in 1820. The sharpbill was described in 1821 by the English naturalist

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 ...

under the

binomial 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 ...

''Oxyrhuncus cristatus'' with an "h" inserted into the name of the genus. The word ''Oxyruncus'' is from the Ancient Greek ''oxus'' for "sharp" or "pointed" and ''rhunkhos'' "bill". The specific epithet is from the Latin ''cristatus'' for "crested" or "plumed". The affinities of the sharpbill to other species has long puzzled ornithologists, and this was only settled by the publication of large multilocus DNA sequencing studies. A high resolution version of the phylogenetic tree in Figure 1 is available from the first author's websit
here
The cladogram below shows the phylogenetic relationships of the sharpbill to other families in the

parvorder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

Tyrannida. It is based on the study by Carl Oliveros and collaborators published in 2019 and the study by Michael Harvey and collaborators that was published in 2020. The families and species numbers are from the list maintained by the

International Ornithologists' Union The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", ...

(IOC). Four

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised: * ''Oxyruncus cristatus frater'' ( Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1868) – Costa Rica and west Panama * ''Oxyruncus cristatus brooksi''

Bangs Bang, bang!, or bangs may refer to: Products * M1922 Bang rifle, a US semi-automatic rifle designed by Søren Hansen Bang * Bang, a List of model car brands, model car brand * Bang (beverage), an energy drink Geography * Bang, Central African ...

& Barbour, 1922 – east Panama * ''Oxyruncus cristatus hypoglaucus'' (Salvin & Godman, 1883) – southeast Venezuela, the Guianas and north Brazil * ''Oxyruncus cristatus cristatus'' Swainson, 1821 – southeast Brazil, east Paraguay and northeast Argentina

References

* Charles G. Sibley; Scott M. Lanyon; Jon E. Ahlquist (1984) "The relationships of the Sharpbill (''Oxyruncus cristatus'')" ''Condor'' 86(1) 48–52.

External links

Image at ADW
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q920534, from2=Q10803545 Birds of Costa Rica Birds of Panama Birds of Brazil Birds of Peruvian Amazonia Birds of the Guiana Shield Birds of the Atlantic Forest Birds described in 1821 Taxa named by William Swainson