About
Pernambuco pygmy-owl is a typical Neotropical pygmy-owl of the Glaucidium minutissimum species complex. This species has a light grey-chestnut coloured crown and head speckled with conspicuous white spots on the face and head to the lower nape, and has a white collar and white underparts streaked with rufous.
This species was described from the Reserva Biológica de Saltinho (which covers just 4.8 km²) in Atlantic coastal forest in Pernambuco, Brazil in 1990 and in 2001 was also found in a 100 ha forest patch at Usina Trapiche. It occupies a tiny and severely fragmented range, and since 2004 surveys in lowland forests in Pernambuco and Alagoas states have failed to find this species.
Main threats include are habitat destruction by illegal logging and deforestation from fire with only a small area remaining at the type locality (the original location from which this species was described).
Although conservation sites have been identified and protection of remaining lowland forest fragments in the area is urgently needed.
- Order: Strigiformes
- Family: Strigidae
- Population: <50 individuals
- Trend: decreasing
EDGE Score
Distribution
Reserva Biológica de Saltinho (which covers just 4.8 km²) in Atlantic coastal forest in Pernambuco, Brazil
Habitat and Ecology
It has been recorded in the canopy of old secondary forest, an unconfirmed report suggests the species is vocal during the rainy months of April and May, and this species has been recorded in forest up to 150 m but has not been found in other well-surveyed forests in the region at elevations between 400 and 600 m.