Guianan Puffbird

About the Guianan Puffbird

The Guianan puffbird (Notharchus macrorhynchos) is a species of bird in the family Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the white-necked puffbird and the buff-bellied puffbird with the English name "white-necked puffbird".

The Guianan puffbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it in the genus Bucco and coined the binomial name Bucco macrorhynchos. Gmelin based his description on the Tamatias noirs et blancs or Barbu à gros bec, de Cayenne that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath the Comte de Buffon. Buffon's specimen had been sent to Paris from Cayenne by Monsieur Duval. The Guianan puffbird is now placed in the genus Notharchus that was introduced in 1863 by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine. The generic name combines the Ancient Greek nōthēs meaning "sluggish" and arkhos meaning "leader" or "chief". The specific epithet macrorhynchos is from... Wikipedia →