Psophiidae Trumpeters
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Introduction
Trumpeters are mid-sized ground birds of the lowland rainforests of South America. Valued by humans for making loud calls (though not particularly trumpet-like) when disturbed and for reputedly protecting chicken flocks from predators, they wander in and out of villages as commensals, often splitting their time between village and forest. Trumpeters have a long neck and hold their small head high. These features, combined with a drape of hair-like secondary coverts over slightly arched wings, give trumpeters a hunchbacked profile. The soft, silky plumage tops off this odd appearance. It is amazing that these seemingly bulky and long-legged birds nest in tree holes.
Habitat
Trumpeters live in lowland tropical rainforest.
Diet and Foraging
Trumpeters’ diets consist largely of fruit. Only the pulp of fruit is digested; for large fruits, only the fleshy portion of the fruit is consumed, leaving the seeds uneaten. Invertebrates make up a small but significant portion of trumpeters’ diets, and, on rare occasions, trumpeters will eat small vertebrates.
Breeding
The mating system of the trumpeters is cooperatively polyandrous, with a single dominant female mating most with a single dominant male, but also with subordinate male group members. Subordinate females are prevented from mating by the dominant pair. Trumpeters nest in natural tree cavities or cavities that have been created by other animals, and they do not build a nest inside the cavity. The dominant female lays 2 to 3 eggs. The dominant pair and subordinate males all participate in incubation, which lasts about 28 days. Chicks are precocial and leave the nest within a day of hatching, jumping, sometimes over 10 m, from the nest to the forest floor. There, they are fed by all adult members of the group, including to a lesser extent the subordinate females, for at least the first three weeks of life in the forest. They only gradually start feeding themselves, finally becoming able to gather all their own food by about three months of age.
Conservation Status
Most species of trumpeters (83%) are thought to have rapidly declining populations due to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Increasing fragmentation is also leading to greater hunting pressure on many species, further contributing to rapid declines (2 NT, 1 VU, 1 EN, 1 CR).
Systematics History
Recent phylogenetic studies have confirmed that the trumpeters are part of Gruiformes, the group to which they have long been assigned. Molecular and morphological studies both indicate that Psophiidae is sister to a clade made up of Gruidae and Aramidae (Livezey & Zusi 2007, Ericson et al. 2006a, Fain et al. 2007, Hackett et al. 2008, Yang et al. 2010).
Conservation Status
Least Concern |
33.3%
|
---|---|
Near Threatened |
0%
|
Vulnerable |
0%
|
Endangered |
0%
|
Critically Endangered |
0%
|
Extinct in the Wild |
0%
|
Extinct |
0%
|
Not Evaluated |
0%
|
Data Deficient |
0%
|
Unknown |
66.7%
|
Data provided by IUCN (2023) Red List. More information