Rufescent tiger heron
in the Pantanal, Brazil
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Ardeidae
Genus: Tigrisoma
Species:
T. lineatum
Binomial name
Tigrisoma lineatum
(Boddaert, 1783)

The rufescent tiger heron (Tigrisoma lineatum) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae. It is found in wetlands from Central America through much of South America.

Juvenile - Sacha Lodge - Ecuador
T. l. lineatum, young adult, Panama

Taxonomy

The rufescent tiger heron was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana.[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Ardea lineata in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.[4] The rufescent tiger heron is now placed in the genus Tigrisoma that was erected by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827.[5][6] The genus name Tigrisoma combines the Ancient Greek tigris, meaning "tiger" and somā, meaning "body"; the specific epithet lineatum is from the Latin lineatus meaning "marked with lines".[7]

Two subspecies are recognised:[6]

  • T. l. lineatum (Boddaert, 1783) – Honduras south to northeast Bolivia and Amazonian Brazil
  • T. l. marmoratum (Vieillot, 1817) – southeast Bolivia to south Brazil and north Argentina

Description

The rufescent tiger heron is a medium-sized heron, measuring 26–30 in (66–76 cm) in length,[nb 1][9] with a mass between 630 and 980 g (22 and 35 oz).[10] The sexes are similarly plumaged.[11] The adult's head, neck and chest are dark rufous, with a white stripe down the center of the foreneck. The remainder of its upperparts are brownish with fine black vermiculations, its belly and vent are buffy-brown, and its flanks are barred black and white.[12] Its tail is black, narrowly barred with white.[13] Its stout bill is yellowish to dusky, and its legs are dull green.[12] Its irides, loral skin, and orbital ring are bright yellow.[13] Unlike other tiger herons, it has no powder down feathers on its back.[11]

The juvenile bird is rusty-buff overall, coarsely barred with black; the buff and black banding on its wings is especially pronounced. Its throat, central chest, and belly are white. It takes some five years to acquire adult plumage.[12]

Similar species

The adult rufescent tiger heron is relatively easy to distinguish from fasciated and bare-throated tiger herons, as it is rufous (rather than primarily gray) on the head and neck. Young birds, however, are much more difficult to identify.[9]

Distribution and habitat

The rufescent tiger heron is found in wetlands from Central America through much of South America.[12] It generally occurs below 500 m (1,600 ft), though it has been recorded as high as 1,600 m (5,200 ft) in Colombia.[9]

Behavior

It is largely crepuscular and generally solitary.[9][13]

Food and feeding

As might be expected of a species that spends most of its time by the water, much of the rufescent tiger heron's diet is aquatic-based, including fish, crustaceans, water beetles, and dragonfly larvae. It also takes adult dragonflies and grasshoppers.[11] It typically hunts alone, standing hunched in shallow pools or wet areas of a forest while it waits for prey.[9]

Voice

The rufescent tiger heron's main call is a low-pitched paired hoot, often given at night.[12] It also gives a fast series of sharp wok notes, which decrease in volume and speed, and a prolonged hoot, transcribed as ooooooo-ooh which rises markedly at the end.[9]

Juvenile

Conservation

Although the rufescent tiger heron's population size and trend has not been quantified, its range is huge, so the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as a species of least concern.[1]

Notes

  1. ↑ By convention, length is measured from the tip of the bill to the tip of the tail on a dead bird (or skin) laid on its back.[8]

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2012). "Tigrisoma lineatum". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de (1780). "L'onoré rayé". Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (in French). Vol. 14. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. pp. 181–182.
  3. ↑ Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de; Martinet, François-Nicolas; Daubenton, Edme-Louis; Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie (1765–1783). "L'onoré rayé, de Cayenne". Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. 9. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. Plate 860.
  4. ↑ Boddaert, Pieter (1783). Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton : avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés (in French). Utrecht. p. 52, Number 860.
  5. ↑ Swainson, William John (1827). "On several groups and forms in ornithology, not hitherto defined". Zoological Journal. 3: 343–363 [362].
  6. 1 2 Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Ibis, spoonbills, herons, hamerkop, shoebill, pelicans". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  7. ↑ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 228, 386. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  8. ↑ Cramp, Stanley, ed. (1977). Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: Birds of the Western Palearctic, Volume 1, Ostrich to Ducks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-857358-6.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hilty, Steven L.; Brown, William L. (1986). A Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Princeton, NJ, US: Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-691-08372-8.
  10. ↑ Dunning Jr., John B. (2008). CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses (2nd ed.). Boca Raton, FL, US: CRC Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4200-6445-2.
  11. 1 2 3 Hancock, James; Kushlan, James A. (2010). The Herons Handbook. London, UK: A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4081-3496-2.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Ridgely, Robert S. (1989). A Guide to the Birds of Panama: With Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Princeton, NJ, US: Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-691-08529-6.
  13. 1 2 3 Kenefick, Martyn; Restall, Robin; Iayes, Floyd (2007). Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd ed.). London, UK: Christopher Helm. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-4081-5209-6.
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