The scarlet-breasted fruiteater (''Pipreola frontalis'') is a species 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 Cotingidae. 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 ...

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 ...

where 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. Two subspecies are recognised though some researchers consider these should be regarded as distinct species. It is a plump green bird with a black head, the males having red throats and the females yellow. It is a relatively common species with a wide range, and 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 ...

has rated its conservation status as being "

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

First described by British

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an England, English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological ...

in 1858, the scarlet-breasted fruiteater is one of eleven species in the genus ''

Pipreola ''Pipreola'' is a genus of bird in the family Cotingidae. Together with ''Ampelioides tschudii'', they are collectively known as fruiteaters. All are restricted to humid montane or foothill forest in western or northern South America. They are t ...

''. Its

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

is held at the

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natur ...

, in Philadelphia. The species is closely related to the fiery-throated fruiteater, but is found at higher elevations. There are two subspecies, which some taxonomists think represent two distinct species. *''P. f. frontalis'' occurs from central Peru into western Bolivia. *''P. f. squamipectus'' occurs from northern Ecuador into northwestern Peru. First described by Frank Chapman in 1925, it is smaller and less colorful than the nominate subspecies. The genus name given to the fruiteaters, ''Pipreola'', is a diminutive of ''Pipra'', which is the genus name

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

gave to the similarly shaped manakins. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''frontalis'' is a

Modern Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

word meaning "fronted" or "browed".

Description

Like all ''Pipreola'' fruiteaters, the scarlet-breasted fruiteater is a plump, short-tailed

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 ...

. It is relatively small for a fruiteater, measuring in length; its mass ranges from , with an average of . The species 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 considerably more colorful than the female. Both sexes have bright green upperparts, with narrow yellow tips to the

tertial feather Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...

s. The male's throat and upper breast are bright red (less extensively colored in ''P. f. squamipectus'' than in ''P. f. frontalis''), while the female's underparts are yellow with green scaling or spots. Its legs and feet are pink or orange.

Distribution and habitat

The scarlet-breasted fruiteater is restricted to the eastern slope of the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

from northeastern

through eastern

to central

. It is found in montane forests at elevations ranging from

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

Behavior

The scarlet-breasted fruiteater is

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

and often occurs higher up, from mid-levels to sub-

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

, than many other members of its genus. Like other fruiteaters, it tends to be rather lethargic.

Feeding

As its name suggests, the scarlet-breasted fruiteater eats primarily fruit, which it picks while hover-gleaning or, less frequently, while perched.

Voice

The scarlet-breasted fruiteater's vocalizations are generally short, high-pitched and infrequent. The song of the ''P. f. squamipectus'' male is sharp and ascending, variously transcribed as "''psii''" or "''tsweeet''", while the song of the ''P. f. frontalis'' male is longer and more complex—a thin, rising trill that becomes a descending whistle, transcribed as "''ti'ti'ti'ti'ti'ti'tseeeeeeeeer''". Its call is a very high-pitched ''pseet''.

Conservation and threats

The

(IUCN) categorizes the Scarlet-breasted Fruiteater as a species of "

", based on its very large range and its status as a fairly common species within its range. However, its population size has never been quantified, and is thought to be decreasing. The scarlet-breasted fruiteater is known to carry several species of bird lice, including members of the genera ''

Myrsidea ''Myrsidea'' is a genus of lice belonging to the family Menoponidae. The genus has cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, a cosmopolitan distribution is the range of a taxon that extends across most or all of the surface of the Earth, ...

'' and '' Philopterus''.

Citations

Sources

* * * * * *

External links

Photos
at the

's Visual Resources for Ornithology
Photos, videos and sound recordings
at

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. ...

's Internet Bird Collection
Sound recordings
at

xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of bird calls and sounds of orthoptera and bats. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound recordings from more th ...

.org {{Taxonbar, from=Q2223439

scarlet-breasted fruiteater The scarlet-breasted fruiteater (''Pipreola frontalis'') is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae. It is found in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru where its natural habitat is subtropical and tropical moist montane forests. Two subspecies are reco ...

Birds of the Bolivian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes Birds of the Peruvian Andes

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot