High in the humid forests of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated mountain range on Colombia's Caribbean coast, a bird known informally as the 'Colombian' guan may soon be officially recognised as a species unique to the country.
For almost a century, this bird has been treated as a subspecies of the band-tailed guan (Penelope argyrotis), grouped with relatives in Colombia's Andes and the Perija Mountains along the Colombian-Venezuelan border. That now looks set to change. A study published in the journal Ibis, by researchers from institutions including Louisiana State University and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, argues the Sierra Nevada bird deserves full species status.
The evidence is surprisingly sensory. Where its relatives have dark brown eyes, bluish facial skin and pink legs, the 'Colombian' guan has a golden ivory iris, dark grey facial skin and bright red legs. Its crown feathers are thinner and edged in pale grey along their whole length, its tail tips darker and redder. Then there is the singing: its dawn song is slower and longer than the relative's, with a distinctive yodel-like jump in pitch. Even the sound of its wings differs — one clean beat rather than the two-part, pause-separated pattern of the other birds.
To make the case, the team sifted through 1,471 photographs from Cornell's Macaulay Library, 222 sound recordings from that archive and the bird-song platform Xeno-canto, plus museum specimens. Photos of living birds proved crucial, since eye, skin and leg colours fade in preserved skins.
Geography backs the genetics of the argument: the Sierra Nevada population is cut off from its nearest relatives by roughly 120 km of arid land in the Cesar-Rancheria basin. The proposal now goes to the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society. If approved, Colombia gains yet another endemic species in a range that already holds 36, according to the Alexander von Humboldt Institute.
For travellers, this is a reminder of why the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is on serious birders' bucket lists. The range packs an extraordinary number of endemic species into a compact area rising from Caribbean beaches to snow-capped peaks, and reserves around Minca and El Dorado lodges make it accessible on a short trip from Santa Marta. If the guan gets its upgrade, it becomes one more reason — and one more target — for a birding holiday here.
Story via Colombia One.
