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 are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird 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''). As yet, no widely acc ...

. 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 relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

and southern

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. ...

(

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

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

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

and some

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

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 (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. Th ...

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 are ...

s with

ovenbirds Ovenbirds or furnariids are a large family of small suboscine passerine birds found from Mexico and Central to southern South America. They form the family Furnariidae. This is a large family containing around 315 species and 70 genera. The oven ...

tanager The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird 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% of the Neotrop ...

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird 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 polar region ...

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 tip ...

s. The breeding system employed by this species is

polygamous Crimes 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, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...

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

Coenraad Jacob Temminck Coenraad Jacob Temminck (; 31 March 1778 – 30 January 1858) was a Dutch aristocrat, zoologist and museum director. Biography Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. From his father, Jacob Temm ...

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

William John Swainson William John Swainson FLS, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of ...

under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''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". Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the sharpbill occupies a basal position in a clade containing the Tityridae. The sharpbill is sometimes placed in its own family Oxyruncidae. There are four subspecies: * ''Oxyruncus cristatus frater'' ( Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1868) – Costa Rica and west Panama * ''Oxyruncus cristatus brooksi''

Bangs Bang or bangs may refer to: Products * M1922 Bang rifle, a US semi-automatic rifle designed by Søren Hansen Bang * Bang, a model car brand * Bang (beverage), an energy drink Geography * Bang, Lorestan, a village in Iran * Bangs, Ohio, Unite ...

& 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 the Peruvian Amazon Birds of the Guianas Birds of the Atlantic Forest Birds described in 1821 Taxa named by William John Swainson Tityridae