Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Galbula ruficauda
To safely eat stinging wasps or bees, the jacamar beats and rubs the insect's abdomen against a branch to remove the stinger before swallowing.
- Scientific name
- Galbula ruficauda
- Taxonomy
- Animalia › Chordata › Aves › Piciformes › Galbulidae › Galbula
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- decreasing
- Biome
- forest
- Habitat
- Tropical dry and moist lowland forests, gallery forests, and woodland edges.
- Diet
- Insectivorous, specializing in flying insects such as butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, and bees.
- Range
- Central America, South America
- Size
- 25 cm (10 in) in length, including the 5 cm needle-like bill; weighs about 25 grams.
- Lifespan
- Approximately 5 to 8 years in the wild.
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and pesticide use reducing insect prey populations.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless and dazzling to observe. Keep a respectful distance of 5 to 10 meters to avoid disrupting its hunting perches. If it approaches, remain still; this bird poses no threat to humans.
The rufous-tailed jacamar ( Galbula ruficauda ) is a near-passerine bird which breeds in the tropical New World in southern Mexico, Central America and South America as far south as southern Brazil and Ecuador.
Photo: Trevor Van Loon, CC-BY, via iNaturalist
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