New Neotropical Barbet

01-12-2000

A striking new species of Neotropical barbet has been discovered in remote Peruvian cloud forest by a joint team from the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science and the Museo de Historia de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Researchers made a trail to the peak of an unnamed summit in departmento Loreto where they soon observed and collected specimens of a colourful barbet which they immediately suspected was new to science. The formal description of the Scarlet-banded Barbet Capito wallacei has now been published in The Auk (Volume 117(3): pp. 569-577).

The Scarlet-banded Barbet is currently known only from the unnamed peak, where it is reasonably numerous, although much of the region where it was discovered is unexplored and any areas about 1,250 m are likely to provide suitable cloud forest habitat. Currently threats to the species are few because the area is so remote and little visited by people. However, deforestation is extensive and increasing on the western slopes of the Cordillera Azul, some 50 km to the west.