Choco Toucan
The Choco Toucan (Ramphastos brevis) is a large, mainly black bird found in humid lowland and foothill forests on the Pacific slope of Colombia and Ecuador. Within its range, extensive habitat destruction is taking place, but it remains fairly common locally.
Description
The Choco Toucan is a large (although among the smallest Ramphastos toucans), predominantly black bird with a striking yellow and black beak, a yellow bib, white uppertail coverts, red undertail coverts and green ocular skin. It is very similar to the larger Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, but lacks brown to the beak. In the wild, the two are generally best separated by their voice; croaking in the Choco, yelping in the Chestnut-mandibled.
Distribution
As suggested by its common name, the Choco Toucan is restricted to the humid Choco forests in western Ecuador and western Colombia. Its estimated global range is over 110,000km.
Reproduction
Choco Toucans lay 3-4 pure white eggs that are incubated for 16 days. The young fledge in about 45-50 days.
In Captivity
Hand-raised Choco Toucans can make good pets. They do however require spacious cages to hop back and forth from because of their active nature, and require toys in their cage to prevent boredom. Their high fruit diet and sensitivity to hemochromatosis (iron storage disease) make them difficult for the novice keeper to maintain.
The Choco Toucan is very rare in captivity in the U.S.
References
BirdLife International (2006) Species factsheet: Ramphastos brevis. Downloaded from [*] on 5/4/2007
InfoNatura: Birds, mammals, and amphibians of Latin America [web application]. 2004. Version 4.1 . Arlington, Virginia (USA): NatureServe. Available: [*]..
External links
Photos of the Choco Toucan on Mangoverde.
Videos of the Choco Toucan on the Internet Bird Collection
Choco Toucan photo gallery VIREO Photo-High Res-(Close-up)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Choco Toucan