Fiery-throated fruiteater

Pipreola chlorolepidota

Photo by Dusan Brinkhuizen (Internet Bird Collection)

Common name:
fiery-throated fruiteater (en); anambé-de-garganta-vermelha (pt); cotinga à gorge rouge (fr); frutero gorjirrojo (es); orangekehlkotinga (de)

Taxonomy:
Order Passeriformes
Family Cotingidae

Range:
This species is found in the eastern foothills of the Andes from southern Colombia to central Peru.

Size:
These birds are 12-13 cm long and weigh about 30 g.

Habitat:
The fiery-throated fruiteater is found in moist tropical forests, at altitudes of 600-1.200 m.

Diet:
They feed on various fruits, often joining mixed-species foraging flocks.

Breeding:
Fiery-throated fruiteaters breed in April-June. The nest is built mainly by the female and consists of a shallow bowl made of mosses and liverworts, and lined with briophyte roots and rootlets. It is placed in an horizontal fork in a tree, about 8 m above the ground. There the female lays 2 creamy white eggs with dark brown spots which she incubates alone for 17-22 days. The chicks are fed by both parents and fledge 20 days after hatching.

Conservation:
IUCN status - NT (Near-Threatened)
This species has a relatively large breeding range, but is described as rare to uncommon and patchily distributed. The fiery-throated fruiteater is suspected to lose 26% of suitable habitat within its distribution over the next decade, based on a model of Amazonian deforestation , being therefore suspected to suffer a moderate decline in the near future. The main threat to this species is habitat loss, through conversion to agriculture and cattle pasture, mining operations, oil exploration and logging, and widespread destruction being caused by peasant farmers and tea and coffee growers.