The rufous-tailed jacamar (''Galbula ruficauda'') 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 t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

which breeds in the tropical

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

in southern

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

as far south as southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

Description

Rufous-tailed jacamar (Galbula ruficauda ruficauda) male

Like other jacamars they are elegant, brightly coloured birds with long bills and tails. The rufous-tailed jacamar is typically long with a long black bill. The subspecies ''G. r. brevirostris'' has, as its name implies, a shorter bill. This bird is metallic green above, and the underparts are mainly orange, including the undertail, but there is a green breast band. Sexes differ in that the male has a white throat, and the female a buff throat; she also tends to have paler underparts. The race ''G. r. pallens'' has a copper-coloured back in both sexes.

Food and foraging

This

insectivore A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...

hunts from a perch, sitting with its bill tilted up, then flying out to catch flying insects. One commonly preyed upon insect is the social wasp ''

Agelaia vicina ''Agelaia vicina'' is a species of wasp in the genus '' Agelaia''. They are neotropical social wasps known to have the largest colony sizes and nest sizes among social wasps, with some colonies exceeding over one million individuals. They are pr ...

''. Other insect prey include

flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...

s, dragonflies, and

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises t ...

. Further, the bird distinguishes between edible and unpalatable butterflies mainly according to body shape.

Nesting

This species is a resident breeder in a range of dry or moist woodlands and scrub. The two to four rufous-spotted 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 a ...

s are laid in a burrow in a bank or

termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes ( eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blat ...

mound.

Vocalizations

The rufous-tailed jacamar's call is a sharp ', and the song a high thin ', ending in a trill.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

Rufous-tailed jacamar videos, photos & sounds
in the Internet Bird Collection

VIREO * ttp://www.bird-stamps.org/cspecies/9901000.htm Stamps(for British Honduras-(

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...

), Guyana, and

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...

)
Photo-High ResArticle
Tsgcs.co.uk {{Taxonbar, from=Q765770 rufous-tailed jacamar Birds of Central America Birds of Mexico Birds of Colombia Birds of Venezuela Birds of the Guianas Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Birds of Bolivia Birds of Brazil Birds of the Amazon Basin rufous-tailed jacamar rufous-tailed jacamar