Channel-billed toucan
species of bird
The channel-billed toucan (Ramphastos vitellinus) is a species of bird in the family Ramphastidae found on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and in tropical South America as far south as southern Brazil and central Bolivia.
Taxonomy
The channel-billed toucan was formally described in 1823 as Ramphastos vitellinus by the German naturalist Hinrich Lichtenstein. The specific epithet is Medieval Latin meaning "deep yellow colour tinged red", from Latin vitellus meaning "yolk of an egg". The type location is Cayenne in French Guiana.
Subspecies
Four subspecies are recognized:
These subspecies were previously considered separate species, but all four will interbreed freely wherever they meet. However, the subspecies R. v. ariel is closer to R. v. culminatus than to the nominate, and are by some already considered close to distinct species status. As R. v. ariel was described before R. v.
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This entry incorporates text from “Channel-billed toucan” 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.