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Giant Conebill
The Giant Conebill Oreomanes fraseri is a small passerine bird, one of the tanager family. The only member of the genus Oreomanes it is closely related to the regular conebills Conirostrum though it differs in its larger size and nuthatch-like foraging habits.
The Giant Conebill is 15 cm in length and weighs 22.0 -27.0 g. It is found in the Andes from Colombia to Ecuador, and Peru to Bolivia. It lives in Polylepis trees of the family Rosaceae.
The Giant Conebill lives individually or in groups of 5 or less. It peels bark off Polylepis trees to find insects. It also eats aphids and sugary solutions secreted by Gynoxys. Nothing is known of reproductive behavior.
Its decline is attributed to the destruction and fragmentation of Polylepis woodland.
The binomial commemorates the British zoologist Louis Fraser.
References
Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
Ridgely, R. S., & G. Tudor. 1989. The birds of South America, vol. 1. Univ. Texas Press, Austin.
Schulenberg, T. S. 1985. An intergeneric hybrid conebill (Conirostrum X Oreomanes) from Peru. Pp. 390-395 in "Neotropical Ornithology" , Ornithol. Monogr. No. 36.
Zimmer, J. 1942d. Studies of Peruvian birds, No. 43. Notes on The genera Dacnis, Xenodacnis, Coereba, Conirostrum, and Oreomanes. 1193: 1-16.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Giant Conebill
