Family Ramphastidae

Toucans

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General

Medium-sized to large, colourful arboreal birds with huge bill and long tail.
Neotropical, with greatest diversity in Amazonia.
Tropical forest, mostly in lowlands, but reaching temperate zone in mountains; one species ranges into woodland.

30-61 cm.

5 genera, 50 species, 78 taxa.

6 species threatened;
none extinct since 1600.

Systematics

The toucans that comprise the family Ramphastidae have long intrigued biologists and travellers. Because of the uniquely serrated bill tomia, a characteristic of all toucans, and probably owing to the length of...

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Morphological Aspects

The long, deep and narrow bill, usually brightly coloured, and with small to large forward-facing serrations, or “teeth”, is the hallmark of all toucans. The bill is also very light, with thin bony struts...

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Habitat

Toucans range through forested lowlands from north-central Mexico south to western and eastern Argentina, a much greater area than that occupied by Neotropical barbets. Most are strictly forest species, and have trouble crossing rivers that are wide. One genus, Andigena, is confined...

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General Habits

For perhaps most of the time, the majority of toucans live in groups. Exceptions are some of the green toucanets, several species of Selenidera, some mountain-toucans, and the Green and Lettered Araçaris. Large gatherings of some toucans occasionally occur in migratory or eruptive...

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Voice

Acoustical displays are important in the Ramphastidae. The non-vocal sounds produced by toucans range from bill-tapping to bill-clattering and loud rustling of the wings during interactions. Wing-rustling is often surprisingly noisy, and is especially notable in the Ramphastos toucans...

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Food and Feeding

These large birds are primarily frugivorous. They seek out and “monitor” fruiting plants of a wide range of species. The fruits that they eat, although diverse, tend to be red, red and black, orange, purple,...

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Breeding

The mountain-toucans and the toucanets of the Andes breed mostly from January to July, or somewhat later, in the north, and from June to December farther south, in Peru and Bolivia. It is during these periods...

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Movements

Regular migrations and long-range dispersal are little known among the toucans. Emerald and Yellow-eared Toucanets in Central America do undertake downslope movements after the breeding season, or late within...

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Relationship with Man

The “banana-billed” Toco and Rainbow-billed Toucans are among the most familiar of Neotropical birds to people everywhere....

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Status and Conservation

As large as they are, being the largest species of the order Piciformes, the toucans are perhaps fortunate to have their centre in Amazonian South America rather than in Malaysia or Central Africa, where the survival of forest tracts is more uncertain. This is not to say that there is any...

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General Bibliography

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Species list

List of species of the Toucans (Ramphastidae) family. Each species provides information on taxonomy, descriptive notes, voice, habitat, food and feeding, breeding, movements, status and conservation and bibliography.

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Family Ramphastidae

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El género Aulacorhynchus

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