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Sharpbill

species of bird

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ920534 ↗
Source-derived summary

The sharpbill (Oxyruncus cristatus) is a small passerine bird that is placed in its own family Oxyruncidae. It was formerly placed in the family Tityridae. Its range is from the mountainous areas of tropical South America and southern Central America (Panama and Costa Rica).

It inhabits the canopy of wet forest and feeds on fruit and some invertebrates. It has an orange erectile crest, black-spotted yellowish underparts and scaling on the head and neck. As its name implies, it has a straight, pointed beak, which gives its common name.

Sharpbills are most commonly found in tall dense forests but occasionally venture to the forest edge. Their diet consists of primarily of fruit, but they will also take insects, hanging upside down in from twigs to obtain insect larvae. They will also travel in mixed-species feeding flocks with ovenbirds, tanagers, woodpeckers and cotingas. The breeding system employed by this species is polygamous with closely grouped males displaying in from a lek.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sharpbill” as species of bird. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 160-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Sharpbill, species and bird can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of bird. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q920534. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.

Best used for
  • Current terminology
  • Classification context
  • Finding cited technical literature
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sharpbill”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sharpbill primary sources, Sharpbill archive and Sharpbill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sharpbill”?
  2. Which observation, specimen, dataset or publication supports the account?
  3. Is the terminology current, historical or disputed?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sharpbill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.