Swallow-tailed cotinga, Phibalura flavirostris flavirostris, Vieillot, 1816, photographed at Intervales State Park, São Paulo state, Brazil (South America).

Image: Nick Athanas/Tropical Birding, 1 October 2007 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Samsung digital camera
I encourage you to purchase images from the photographers who freely share their beautiful work with us.

Question: This Brazilian mystery bird species is poorly known and is placed in a taxonomic family that I've never shown to you before. Can you identify this species and its taxonomic family?

Response: This is an adult female swallow-tailed cotinga, Phibalura flavirostris. As its common name implies, this species was originally placed into the suboscine family, Cotingidae. The cotingas are a large and very diverse family that are found living in tropical forests or forest edges, of Central and South America. They primarily eat fruit or insects and fruit.

This species differs from the other cotingas because it forages mainly on insects that it hawks from a perch in the forest canopy (thus, its long forked "swallow" tail). Interestingly, they tend to nest rather low in the forest. For example, this individual was photographed on a nest that was roughly one meter above the forest floor.

The cotingas are such a diverse group that it's difficult to say which traits they actually share, although they do all have broad bills with a small hook at the tip, rounded wings and strong legs. But seriously, this description can apply to a number of avian groups.

That said, recent work has resulted in several cotingas being removed to the family, Tityridae, which leaves unclear the precise relationships for this peculiar species. At this time, it is considered to be incertae sedis (unclear placement). Those of you who are following along will recall that we recently met another taxon, the New World vultures, which are also considered incertae sedis.

So I suppose you could consider my original query to be a trick question, although I actually had meant for it to make you think a little bit about taxonomy and how we go about classifying species.

Here's a video of a perched swallow-tailed cotinga, giving you a good idea of how distinctive this rare bird is (filmed at Caraça, Minas Gerais, Brasil using a Swarovski ats65hd telescope, DCA adaptor and a Nikon Coolpix P5100. Uploaded 15 September 2010):

Visit rockfowlmarkandrews's YouTube channel [video link].

This brief video captures a pair sitting in a tree (filmed at Santa Catarina, Brasil. Uploaded 19 July 2011):

Visit avescatarinenses's YouTube channel [video link].

This orphaned species is monotypic, however, this may not remain the situation for long: the Bolivian swallow-tailed cotinga (or Palkachupa cotinga) P. boliviana, which is currently a subspecies, will likely be formally elevated to full species status soon. The Bolivian swallow-tailed cotinga was recently rediscovered after not being sighted for 98 years.

Unfortunately, both species are rare and becoming ever more so every day. The Bolivian species has a tiny population in the Apolo region of Bolivia, whilst the nominate species is found only in Atlantic tropical forests in south-eastern Brazil, eastern Paraguay and in the Misiones area of Argentina. It is thought that habitat destruction and burning is the cause for their decline, but since these birds are often found in forest edge, it would appear they should be able to tolerate at least some habitat loss and human disturbance, so the cause for their decline is not well known.

You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.

If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative international audience here at The Guardian, feel free to contact me to learn more.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

twitter: @GrrlScientist
facebook: grrlscientist
evil google+: grrlscientist
email: grrlscientist@gmail.com