Highland guan (Penelopina nigra)

Captive male highland guan perching
Captive male highland guan perching

Highland guan fact file

Highland guan description

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassAves
OrderGalliformes
FamilyCracidae
GenusPenelopina (1)

Belonging to the same family as the curassows, the highland guan is a sexually dimorphic bird. Adult males are black overall with a sheen of bluish-green on the upperparts and a browner, duller belly. The face is decorated with a red bill, eye-ring and throat wattle. The legs and feet are also red. Females are brown overall, barred rufous, with a grey bill and dusky red legs. Juveniles share the colouration of the females (3).

Also known as
black chachalaca, black guan, black pajuil, black penelope, little guan, penelopina.
Synonyms
Penelope niger.
Spanish
Pava Pajuil.
Size
Length: 59 – 65 cm (2)
Weight
0.86 – 0.92 kg (2)
Top

Highland guan biology

Spending much of its time in the trees, the highland guan forages for berries and fruits, but it may descend to the ground where it has been noted eating animals, including lizards and mice. It is often seen in groups of three or four individuals, as well as singly and in pairs. Individuals call to each other with a high-pitched ascending whistle (2) (5).

Whilst pairs of highland guan are often seen together, this species is thought to be polygamous, with more females hatching successfully than males. Between February and May, a large and poorly constructed nest is built from sticks and leaves, and is lined with some of the female’s downy feathers. It is typically positioned within a tree, tree fern, or bush, sometimes near or on the ground. Two eggs are laid which hatch between March and June (2) (6) (7).

Top

Highland guan range

This highland guan has a range running from southern Mexico to northern Nicaragua, through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras (2).

Top

Highland guan habitat

Found in evergreen, humid, broadleaf forest (cloud forest) and pine oak forest, at altitudes of between 1,000 and 3,300 metres above sea level, but it has also been recorded at low elevations from 300 to 900 meters. Although the highland guan prefers primary forest, it has also been observed in adjacent secondary forest and mature cypress plantations (4).

Top

Highland guan status

Classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List 2007 (1), and listed on Appendix III of CITES in Guatemala (3).

IUCN Red List species status – Vulnerable

Top

Highland guan threats

Habitat alteration and hunting pose the greatest threat to the highland guan, and rising human populations means that the highland guan is expected to become increasingly threatened (4). Guatemala, in particular, where this species is most prevalent, has lost half of its suitable habitat (8), to coffee plantations and to slash-and-burn cultivation of corn fields (4), and in Nicaragua, the species is in danger of local extirpation due to deforestation (4). Even in protected areas, the highland guan faces the threat of clandestine hunting and deforestation (4).

Top

Highland guan conservation

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) affords the highland guan some protection from trade in Guatemala (3). Several private reserves in Guatemala prohibit hunting and protect the habitat of the highland guan, hunting of this species is also prohibited in Mexico, and the highland guan is legally protected in El Salvador (4). Further measures have been recommended to conserve remaining populations of the highland guan, including expanding the system of protected areas and enforcing management within these reserves to limit illegal deforestation and hunting (4).

View information on this species at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Top

Find out more

For further information on the highland guan see:

  • del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. and Sargatal, J. (2001) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 2: New World Vultures to Guineafowl. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

For more information on this and other bird species please see:

Top

Authentication

Authenticated (16/10/07) by Knut Eisermann, PROEVAL RAXMU Bird Monitoring Program.
http://www.biomonitoreo.org/monitoreo

Top

Glossary

Polygamous
Mating with more than one partner in the same season.
Primary forest
Forest that has remained undisturbed for a long time and has reached a mature condition.
Secondary forest
Forest that has re-grown after a major disturbance, such as fire or timber harvest, but has not yet reached the mature state of primary forest.
Sexually dimorphic
When males and females of the same species differ in appearance.
Wattle
Bare fleshy skin that hangs from the bill, throat or eye of birds.
Top

References

  1. IUCN Red List (September, 2007)
    http://www.iucnredlist.org
  2. del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. and Sargatal, J. (2001) Handbook of the Birds of the World Volume 2: New World Vultures to Guineafowl. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
  3. CITES (May, 2006)
    http://www.cites.org
  4. Eisermann, K., Herrera, N. and Komar, O. (2006) Highland guan (Penelopina nigra). In: Brooks, D.M. (Ed) Conserving Cracids: the most Threatened Family of Birds in the Americas. Miscellaneous Publications of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, Texas.
  5. Andrle, R.F. (1967) Notes on the black chachalaca, Penelopina nigra. The Auk, 84(2): 169 - 172.
  6. Eisermann, K. (2005) Noteworthy bird observations in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 125: 3 - 11.
  7. Delacour, J. and Amadon, D. (2004) Curassows and Related Birds. Second Edition. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
  8. BirdLife International (May, 2006)
    http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=94&m=0

More »Related species

Crested guan (Penelope purpurascens)White-browed guan (Penelope jacucaca)Black curassow (Crax alector)Blue-throated piping-guan (Pipile cumanensis)Southern helmeted curassow (Pauxi unicornis)Bearded guan (Penelope barbata)Great curassow (Crax rubra)Wattled curassow (Crax globulosa)

This species is featured in:

This species is affected by global climate
change. To learn about climate change
and the species that are affected,
visit our climate change pages.

Please donate to ARKive today

Help us share the wonders of the natural world. Donate today!

Sign up to our newsletter

Get the latest wild news direct to your inbox.

Get involved

ARKive relies on its media donors to donate photos and videos. Can you help? There are plenty of other ways you can get involved too!

X
Close

Image credit

Captive male highland guan perching  
Captive male highland guan perching

© Kurt Duchez

Kurt Duchez
arkive@wildscreen.org.uk

X
Close

Link to this photo

ARKive species - Highland guan (Penelopina nigra) Embed this ARKive thumbnail link by copying and pasting the code below.

Terms of Use - The displayed thumbnail may be used as a link from your website to ARKive's online content for private, scientific, conservation or educational purposes only. It may NOT be used within Apps.

Read more about

X
Close

MyARKive

MyARKive offers the scrapbook feature to signed-up members, allowing you to organize your favourite ARKive images and videos and share them with friends.

X
Close

Terms and Conditions of Use of Materials

Copyright in this website and materials contained on this website (Material) belongs to Wildscreen or its licensors.

Visitors to this website (End Users) are entitled to:

  • view the contents of, and Material on, the website;
  • download and retain copies of the Material on their personal systems in digital form in low resolution for their own personal use;
  • teachers, lecturers and students may incorporate the Material in their educational material (including, but not limited to, their lesson plans, presentations, worksheets and projects) in hard copy and digital format for use within a registered educational establishment, provided that the integrity of the Material is maintained and that copyright ownership and authorship is appropriately acknowledged by the End User.

End Users shall not copy or otherwise extract, alter or manipulate Material other than as permitted in these Terms and Conditions of Use of Materials.

Additional use of flagged material

Green flagged material 

Certain Material on this website (Licence 4 Material) displays a green flag next to the Material and is available for not-for-profit conservation or educational use. This material may be used by End Users, who are individuals or organisations that are in our opinion not-for-profit, for their not-for-profit conservation or not-for-profit educational purposes. Low resolution, watermarked images may be copied from this website by such End Users for such purposes. If you require high resolution or non-watermarked versions of the Material, please contact Wildscreen with details of your proposed use.

Creative commons material

Certain Material on this website has been licensed to Wildscreen under a Creative Commons Licence. These images are clearly marked with the Creative Commons buttons and may be used by End Users only in the way allowed by the specific Creative Commons Licence under which they have been submitted. Please see http://creativecommons.org for details.

Any other use

Please contact the copyright owners directly (copyright and contact details are shown for each media item) to negotiate terms and conditions for any use of Material other than those expressly permitted above. Please note that many of the contributors to ARKive are commercial operators and may request a fee for such use.

Save as permitted above, no person or organisation is permitted to incorporate any copyright material from this website into any other work or publication in any format (this includes but is not limited to: websites, Apps, CDs, DVDs, intranets, extranets, signage, digital communications or on printed materials for external or other distribution). Use of the Material for promotional, administrative or for-profit purposes is not permitted.