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  Profile

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  In flight

Kingfishers

Keel-billed Motmot

Electron carinatum

• epic
• 42 km/h
• Vulnerable

IUCN Vulnerable. Keel-shaped ridge on the bill sets it apart. One of the rarest motmots alive.

Population

1,500–7,000 mature individuals, decreasing (BirdLife/IUCN 2020 assessment, criteria C2a(i); poor data quality, 2–100 subpopulations)

Habitat

Humid evergreen lowland and foothill/montane forest, often in steep-sided gullies along streams, mostly up to ~760-900 m (locally 1,220-1,600 m in Honduras/northern Central America); high forest dependency, favoring primary and secondary foothill forest; occurs at low densities, rare to uncommon

Fun fact

The Keel-billed Motmot nests in burrows it digs into earthen stream banks, and at one site in Belize it has been recorded nesting inside unexcavated ancient Maya structures.

Range

Caribbean slope of Central America across six countries: southern Mexico (Veracruz, Oaxaca) through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to northern Costa Rica (Alajuela Province); extent of occurrence ~277,000 km²; recorded at relatively few scattered localities

Diet

Mainly insects and other arthropods, also small frogs, lizards, and snakes taken by sallying from a perch (diet assumed similar to congener broad-billed motmot); eats little fruit compared to other motmots

Size

0.34 m