Dear Friends,

I am delighted to say that I have finished the Ramphastidae, Toucans.  You will see that in a number of respects I differ from the account by Short & Horne in HBW 7.  Robin Restall and I are preparing a detailed paper on thse matters, but I have indicated briefly in notes where we disagree with Short and Horne and why.

Short & Horne (2001 and 2002), followed Haffer (1974), in merging Chestnut-mandibled Toucan Ramphastos swainsonii Gould 1833 with Black-mandibled Toucan Ramphastos ambiguus Swainson, 1823.  Haffer (1974) lumped these, citing specimens from the lower Cauca Valley (Colombia) as evidence that the taxa interbred (at least formerly) in this location. The statement by Short & Horne (2002: 271) is somewhat vaguer:” Race swainsonii often treated as a distinct species, but resembles nominate in behaviour, voice & morphology, and they apparently [Emphasis added] interbred in former contact zone in Colombia(lower Cauca Valley).". We also note that Short and Horne (2001) did not include any illustrations of supposed R. swainsonii x R. ambiguus hybrids in plate 34, which depicted (inter alia) “Various toucan intergrades and hybrids…”.We have evidence that Haffer’s diagnosis of hybrids is unreliable.  Furthermore, even if we accept that hybrids occurred in the lower Cauca Valley, we have no information on whether phenotypically pure specimens occurred in the same area, or whether, as in northern Ecuador, such birds greatly outnumbered the hybrids.  Hilty and Brown (1986), Stiles and Skutch (1989), Sibley and Monroe (1990),and Ridgely and Greenfield (2001) have not followed Haffer, and have treated swainsonii as a distinct species.  Ridgely and Greenfield (2001: 421) stated that the two are indubitably closely related, with similar, if not identical voices; and considered them to be allospecies.   Hilty & Brown (1986:330) stated that zone of integration between R. swainsonii and R. ambiguus, if any, was unknown.  In the face of this evidence, we prefer to retain Chestnut-mandibled Toucan R. swainsonii and Black-mandibled Toucan R. ambiguus as specifically distinct.

Enjoy, and as always comments are very welcome.

John Penhallurick