Thiago V V Costa

Universidade Federal de Itajubá (UNIFEI) · Institute of Natural Resources (IRN)

South America holds 30% of the world's avifauna, with the Atlantic Forest representing one of the richest region of the Neotropics. Here we compiled a dataset on Brazilian Atlantic Forest bird occurrence (150,423) and abundance samples (N=832 bird species; 33,119) using multiple methods, including qualitative surveys, mist-nets, point counts, and l...

The Rufous Potoo (Nyctibius bracteatus Gould, 1846) is the smallest member of the family Nyctibiidae, which comprises seven species endemic to the Neotropical region. Morphologically, it is highly distinct from its congeners, not only in its smaller size, but also in possessing a strange marking on its iris and having entirely rufous plumage, which...

The “Watkins’s” Ruddy Foliage-gleaner was described as Automolus watkinsi by Carl Eduard Hellmayr (1912), based on one specimen collected two years earlier in Yahuarmayo, Marcapata, Peru. It is known to occur in the Andean foothills from northern Peru south to northern Bolivia and in extreme western Amazonian Brazil (Remsen 2003). This species has...

Clytoctantes atrogularis Lanyon, Stotz and Willard, 1990 (Thamnophilidae) is one of the most mysterious and poorly known birds of the Neotropics. Endemic to Amazonian Brazil, it was known only from the holotype and two sight records at the type locality in Rondônia, and a sighting of a pair with a recording on the Sucunduri River in Amazonas. Here...

Setopagis heterura is a poorly known nightjar that occurs in grasslands and forest edges in central-north Venezuela, northern Colombia and western Guyana. We report here a remarkable southward range extension for the species based on fieldwork and skin specimens, representing the first documented records for Brazil, from the state of Roraima, and f...

Mangroves and salt marshes are important habitats for resident and migratory birds. Nevertheless, information on avian species richness and composition in Brazilian mangroves and salt marshes is scattered and has never been comprehensively investigated. This chapter aims to identify the diversity of birds inhabiting Brazilian mangroves and salt mar...

Aim One of the oldest and most powerful ways for ecologists to explain distinct biological communities is to invoke underlying environmental differences. But in hyper‐diverse systems, which often display high species richness and low species abundance, these sorts of community comparisons are especially challenging. The classic view for Amazonian b...

While bird diversity in the Atlantic Forest can be considered well-known, how the communities have been affected by deforestation and habitat fragmentation is not. We studied birds in 10 forest fragments of distinct sizes (all originally within the Atlantic Forest) in southern Bahia. In 5,391 bird encounters, we found 251 species, with 46 endemics...

Many studies have shown the positive and negative impacts of feeding wild birds using feeders; however, none of them considered case studies in Brazil. In 2020, social isolation measures imposed by COVID-19 boosted Brazilians’ interest in bird feeders, encouraging a group of birders to create an event (called JaneLives) to broadcast simultaneous li...

O capítulo Aves apresenta 8 anos de inventário da avifauna no entorno da Estrada de Ferro Carajás, na Amazônia Oriental. Contribuindo de forma significativa para o conhecimento ornitológico no Centro de Endemismo Belém, propiciou a documentação de novos registros de espécies no Maranhão e expansões na distribuição geográfica conhecidas, inclusive d...

The family Nyctibiidae (potoos) comprises seven extant species currently included in the genera Nycti-bius and Phyllaemulor, endemic to the Neotropical region, and the extinct genus Paraprefica from the Eocene of Europe. The living species are secretive nocturnal birds, characterized by spend most of the daylight time in a freezing, upright posture...

As demonstrated by Wright (2015), the Curl-crested Aracari was originally named Pteroglossus beauharnaisii by Wagler in 1831; in the following year, the same author used the subsequent combination P. beauharnaesii (Wagler, 1832). Based on the evidence, Wright concluded that the valid name of the taxon was Pteroglossus beauharnaisii. Bock & Schodde...

Scientists have long been trying to understand why the Neotropical region holds the highest diversity of birds on Earth. Recently, there has been increased interest in morpho- logical variation between and within species, and in how climate, topography, and anthropogenic pressures may explain and affect phenotypic variation. Because morphological d...

Scientists have long been trying to understand why the Neotropical region holds the highest diversity of birds on Earth. Recently, there has been increased interest in morphological variation between and within species, and in how climate, topography and anthropogenic pressures may explain and affect phenotypic variation. Because morphological data...

Seed-finches are small-sized Neotropical granivorous birds characterized by extremely strong and thick beaks. Among these birds, the Great-billed Seed-Finch Sporophila maximiliani has been selectively and intensively trapped to the extent that has become one of the most endangered bird species in South America, yet its taxonomy remains complex and...

Rusty Tinamou Crypturellus brevirostris is an elusive, ground-dwelling bird of terra firme forest. Although widespread across Amazonian Brazil, the Guiana Shield and extreme south-east Colombia, it is everywhere uncommon. Frequently, only its distinctive voice betrays its presence and therefore most contacts with this tinamou are auditory. Here, we...

As a part of a taxonomic study of the Penelope superciliaris complex, we noticed that two names are available for the population which occurs on the left margin of the Tapajós River, in Amazonian Brazil, which, in life, possesses a bright-blue face. The type locality of Penelope superciliares [sic] cyanosparius Nardelli, 1993, described by Nardelli...

Clutch size of Blackish Nightjar Nyctipolus nigrescens is generally considered to be one egg. Records of two-egg clutches mentioned in ornithological literature of the 19th and early 20th century are possibly mistakes or misidentifications. However, we report a documented recent observation of a female incubating two eggs. © 2017 The Authors; Journ...

The Curl-crested Aracari Pteroglossus beauharnaesii Wagler, 1832 is one of the most remarkable species in the family Ramphastidae. Among other distinctive plumage traits, its modified curly, shiny black crown feathers are unique in the family and are modified to an extent not found in any other living bird species (Brush 1967; Short & Horne 2002)....

The Rose-fronted Parakeet Pyrrhura roseifrons (Gray, 1859) is a poorly known species that occurs in lowland forest of western Amazonia, from eastern Peru to western Brazil and northern Bolivia (Collar 1997; Forshaw 2010). Like many Pyrrhura species, it is mostly green, and has a pale auricular patch, red tail and belly, but presents a bright red he...

Setopagis maculosa (Todd, 1920) (Aves: Caprimulgidae) was described based on a single male specimen collected by Samuel Milton Klages in French Guiana, northeastern South America. Since then, no new specimens have been collected nor have any reliable records been made, and the validity of the species has been questioned. A detailed analysis of the...

Setopagis maculosa (Todd, 1920) (Aves: Caprimulgidae) was described based on a single male specimen collected by Samuel Milton Klages in French Guiana, northeastern South America. Since then, no new specimens have been collected nor have any reliable records been made, and the validity of the species has been questioned. A detailed analysis of the...

Although the Atlantic forest is the best-studied Brazilian phytogeographic domain, few coastal municipalities of the state of Sao Paulo can count on published and critically revised bird species list, which are important initial steps to organize conservation inniciatives. Here we present historical records from Bertioga, a northern coastline munic...

Laughing Falcons (Herpetotheres cachinnans) are common, medium-sized falconids that occur throughout the Neotropical region and marginally in the Nearctic American continent. There is little data on their breeding biology with the only information available based on scattered records. Here, we report data on 11 nests of H. cachinnans from the Panta...

While maps of avian diversity show the northern Amazon to be somewhat poor in terms of species richness, recent surveys reveal that this area actually possesses one of the most species-rich avifaunas for the Neotropics lowlands. Our surveys indicate that at least 519 bird species occur in Viruá National Park (VNP) and adjacent areas, located in the...

Little has been published on the natural history, immature stages and development of the Neotropical butterfly genus Methona Doubleday, 1847. In spite of being relatively common where it occurs, many aspects of the morphology and development of Methona themisto (Hübner, 1818)still are poorly known. Here we describe the morphology and duration of th...

To offer a test of expert knowledge about rarity of twenty Amazon forest bird species following an approach that equates rarity with low site occupancy and formally accounts for imperfect species detection. We define ten pairs of closely related species, each pair with one hypothetically common and one hypothetically rare species. Our null hypothes...

Although the causes of decline in bird populations in forest fragments are not well known, nest predation seems to play a major role in these events. A way to estimate the relative importance of predation for the reproduction of native birds is the use of artificial nests. Here, there is a report on the high rates of predation on artificial nests b...

Cercomacra cinerascens Hellmayr 1905 is a medium-sized species of antbird distributed throughout the Amazon Basin in South America. It comprises a complex of four currently recognized taxa, C. c. cinerascens (Sclater 1857), C. c. immaculata Chubb 1918, C. c. sclateri Hellmayr 1905 and C. c. iterata Zimmer 1932, all characterized by the grey colorat...

Due to rapid and continuous deforestation, recent bird surveys in the Atlantic Forest are fol‑ lowing rapid assessment programs to accumulate significant amounts of data during short periods of time. During this study, two surveying methods were used to evaluate which tech‑ nique rapidly accumulated most species (>90% of the estimated empirical val...

Parque das Neblinas (PN) is a 2,800 ha nature reserve contiguous with an Atlantic Forest fragment known as Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar located in the municipality of Bertioga, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The area originally contained Eucalyptus trees grown for paper pulp production. The aims of the study were the following: (1) to charac...

White-winged Potoo Nyctibhis leucopterus is known from very few localities in the Atlantic Forest, but is supposed to occur throughout suitable habitats in Amazonia. Known solely from specimens until the late 1980s, there are still very few data on its natural history and distribution. Here we report a striking new record of N. leucopterus in the A...

Boat-billed Tody-Tyrant Hemitriccus josephinae occurs in north-east South America, but there are large gaps in its distribution and we know little of its natural history. We discovered a small population of H. josephinae at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragmentation Project (BDFFP), 80 km north of Manaus, Brazil, a range extension of 60 km. In...

Resumo: Comportamento reprodutivo de Chordeiles acutipennis na Amazônia oriental. O bacurau-de-asa-fina (Chordeiles acutipennis) ocorre na maior parte das Américas Central e do Sul, México e sudoeste dos Estados Unidos. Essa espécie possui hábitos noturnos e crepusculares e habita vários tipos de ambientes abertos, incluindo savanas, jardins e área...

AbsTRACT The Potoos form an exclusively neotropical family of nocturnal birds distributed throughout Central and South America, except Chile, and reaching their highest diversity in the Amazon region. The seven currently recognized species are certainly among the most poorly known birds of this region. They are characterized by a distinctive mimicr...

We observed a case of leucism in a Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) present from July 2005 to May 2006 in a salt lake at Rio Negro farm, south of the Pantanal, Brazil. Here we present a complete description and pictures of the aberrant individual.

This paper discusses a qualitative and quantitative survey of the avian community in the Fazenda Rio Claro (22°27'S, 48°51'W), Lençóis Paulista, São Paulo State. The quantitative survey was conducted in the period August 2001-July 2002 using the Point Counts method. Diversity, frequency of occurrence (FO), abundance and evenness were measured for t...