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  Profile

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  In flight

Tropical Birds

Rufous-tailed Jacamar

Galbula ruficauda

• rare
• 36 km/h
• Least Concern

Hunts large iridescent butterflies and eats them by beating off the wings first. Highly particular about its deliveries.

Population

Not quantified by IUCN/BirdLife; independently corroborated as common and widespread across its range with no numeric global estimate found in any accessible source

Habitat

Forest edges, gallery forest, second-growth thickets, scrubby/dry-moist woodland, streams and river banks, marshes and savannahs with scattered trees, from lowlands up to ~900 m (rarely 1,300 m) elevation

Fun fact

The Rufous-tailed Jacamar can visually distinguish palatable from unpalatable butterfly species largely by body shape before deciding whether to strike and eat them.

Range

Southern Mexico through Central America and South America to northern Argentina, including Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Bolivia, Brazil, plus Trinidad and Tobago

Diet

Insectivore; flycatches flying insects (butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, bees, wasps, flies) from a perch, beating prey against a branch to kill it and remove indigestible parts before swallowing

Size

0.25 m