Gilded Barbet Capito auratus Scientific name definitions

Gilded Barbet is a brightly colored bird of western Amazonian forests found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. The species has a golden head with a broad black eye mask,  blunt blackish bill, blackish upperparts with golden tips, and pale yellow underparts with black flank spotting or streaking. Though it can be found in a number of forest types, the species is most commonly found in varzea and terra firme forests where it feeds on fruit and arthropods in the canopy. Gilded Barbet was formerly considered a subspecies of Black-spotted Barbet (Capito niger).

16–19 cm; 47·5–77 g. Male nominate race has brownish-gold crown, black head-sides and upperparts, yellow rear supercilium (continuing as scapular stripe and forming broad V mark on back), yellow-spotted wingbar and yellow-tipped tertials, olive-yellow streaks on lower back and rump, bright orange throat, rest of underparts yellow, with black-spotted breast-sides and flanks; heavy mainly blackish bill (on maxilla), with mandible silvery-blue to horn or combinations of green, grey and blue, legs and feet vary from grey to slate, or olive and green, eyes brown to red, but also purple-white, with blue-slate orbital ring. Female more heavily marked, pale flecking and edging above, very heavily spotted or streaked below. Immature  duller than female, with spots generally more streak-like, pale markings more buffy and head colours more orange; bill greyer, eyes grey to brown. Races differ mainly in head colours and amount of markings below, falling into three groups: red-throated (nitidior, <em>auratus</em> , amazonicus); orange-throated (<em>aurantiicinctus</em> , <em>hypochondriacus</em> , insperatus); and orange-throated with female spot-throated (<em>punctatus</em> ); with orosae intermediate between auratus and insperatus, having gold-washed underparts, a yellow (occasionally orange) crown, and moderately marked underparts in female (it intergrades with punctatus to west and insperatus to south). Race nitidior (including ‘transilens’) very much like nominate auratus (males probably indistinguishable, though orange colours perhaps slightly redder, with more orange-red on flanks), but female is redder on crown and throat, with fewer markings below; amazonicus (including ‘novaolindae’), which intergrades with orosae to west and insperatus to south, differs from nitidior and nominate in its yellower (rather than red) crown markings, and more yellow-orange (less reddish) flanks; aurantiicinctus (including ‘intermedius’) somewhat variable, being either orange-gold or gold-throated, with gold-yellow flanks, dusky gold-yellow in crown, and not particularly heavily marked in female , and clearly intergrades with nitidior in Duida region and uppermost Orinoco; hypochondriacus  is relatively similar to last race, has gold or yellow-gold crown and throat, with black rear crown and gold-washed crown; insperatus (intergrades with amazonicus through ‘arimae’) is similar to aurantiicinctus, has orange-gold to gold-yellow markings, with yellow in crown and gold edging on flanks (yellower to SW & NW, more orange-gold to NE); and <em>punctatus</em> (including ‘macintyrei’ and ‘conjunctus’) is generally yellow or gold-yellow on throat, yellow on crown and whiter above in males, while females have variably-sized streaking below, but heavy spotting pervades throat, and this race intergrades probably with nitidior, auratus and orosae to east, and insperatus to south.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Lowland and low hill floodplain-forest, terra firme forest (with Calycophyllum spruceanum, Ficus insipida, Cedrela odorata and Cecropia membranacea, or Ceiba pentandra, Chorisia sp., Ficus spp., Pourouma spp., palms Oenocarpus sp., in more upland areas), riverine forest in later successional stages, second growth, edges, clearings, and gardens and plantations; reaches humid lower montane forest, and mossy elfin forest in Peru; also in palms and forest patches in white-sand areas. Replaced by C. aurovirens in várzea and undergrowth. Up to 1000 m in Brazil, to 1300 m in Bolivia, to 1370 m in SE Colombia, to 1600 m in Venezuela, to 1700 m in Ecuador, and locally over 1500 m in Peru (mainly below 1350 m).

Diverse fruits , such as figs, those of Cecropia, Ocotea, Pagama plicata, Guarea guara, mangoes, form up to 80% of diet; nectar at times, e.g. of Inga sp.; also various insects, e.g. grasshoppers, locusts, and spiders eaten, can represent up c. 18% of diet. Study focused on birds feeding on Goupia glabra found that present species preferentially selects riper fruits (2 Schaefer, H.M. and Schaefer, V. (2006). The fruits of selectivity: how birds forage on Goupia glabra fruits of different ripeness. Journal of Ornithology. 147(4): 638–643. Close ). A survey of stomach contents of 41 specimens revealed that 80·4% contained only fruit, 9·8% arthropods and fruit and 7·3% arthropods alone, while one specimen’s stomach contents could not be identified. Captives accepted bananas, raisins, locusts, mealworms, and young mice. Hangs, reaches, probes , peers, seeks insects in dead-leaf clusters from a nearby perch, goes over limbs and trunks where lichens growing, may tap at bark. Usually solitary, sometimes in pairs; up to 10–15 can gather at large fruiting tree. Occasionally joins mixed-species foraging flocks, working canopy to middle or lower levels, e.g. flycatchers, woodcreepers and tanagers (Tangara spp.). Sometimes follows Red-throated Caracaras (Ibycter americanus) as they hunt for wasp nests.

Song  (given by both sexes) comprises double, sometimes single, low and frog-like “hoot” notes, “oo-doot”, with emphasis on second note of each pair (see C. niger), in series for 5–60 but usually 6–20 seconds, ventriloquial, 1–2 double notes per second, increasing somewhat in tempo and dropping in volume, confusable with Amazonian Motmot (Momotus momota) song and possibly with higher-pitched, more trilling, double-noted song of Eubucco richardsoni; call soft “trra-trra” notes.

Sept–May or later, to Jul, in N of range; Mar–Nov in Colombia and Ecuador; Jun or Jul to as late as Feb in Peru to Bolivia. Nests have been found in shade trees in coffee plantations in E Ecuador (3 Canaday, C. (1996). Loss of insectivorous birds along a gradient of human impact in Amazonia. Biological Conservation 77(1):63–77. Close ). Most aspects of breeding biology are presumably similar to those of formerly conspecific C. niger, but latter is also not well known.

Not globally threatened. Commonest Neotropical barbet. In Peru, 10·5 pairs/100 ha in mature forest, 15 pairs/100 ha in transition forest, and up to 20 pairs/100 ha in late successional riverside habitat. Fairly common in Colombia; fairly common to common in Ecuador; uncommon in Peru . Voices of several races unknown. An important species, providing cavities used later by other species; if this barbet comes under threat, others will also suffer.