Keel-billed Toucan
Where and when to see the Keel-billed Toucan
DraftOn the Yucatán Peninsula
It lives in tall and medium forest, not on the coast or in the dry north of Yucatán state. Look for small groups in fruiting treetops: their frog-like croaking usually gives them away first.
Where it’s reported most
- MuyilFelipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo
- Ruta de los CenotesPuerto Morelos, Quintana Roo
- Becán and XpujilCalakmul, Campeche
- CalakmulCalakmul, Campeche
When
All year
Reported all year.
Reports relative to effort
- January: 100%
- February: 92%
- March: 99%
- April: 93%
- May: 90%
- June: 96%
- July: 82%
- August: 73%
- September: 93%
- October: 83%
- November: 99%
- December: 95%
Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2026 · Base map: Natural Earth
Moves through the canopy in small groups, eating fruit and dropping the seeds that grow the next forest. Where the tall fruiting trees go, the toucans go too.
- Identification
- A black toucan with a bright yellow face and chest, red under the tail and pale blue skin around the eye. Its huge green bill, patterned with orange, red and blue, is unlike that of any other bird in Mexico.
- Voice
- Its call is a repeated “creek, creek” that sounds a lot like a croaking tree frog.
What the photo doesn’t show
DraftThe giant of the family
It is the only large toucan in Mexico. The country’s other toucans, the Collared Aracari and the emerald toucanets, are much smaller birds. 1,2
Folded up to sleep
A group spends the night together in one tree hole. To make room, each toucan folds its tail up over its back and tucks its bill under a wing. 3,4
A toucan with carrion
In 2018 a trail camera in Costa Rica filmed one carrying off a dead mouse that researchers had left on a branch. It was the first published record of any toucan eating carrion. 5
Losing its forest
About 15% of the tree cover in its range was lost in roughly 18 years, and hunting and trapping for the pet trade add to its decline. 6
Sources
- Birds of the World (Cornell Lab): Keel-billed Toucan (opens in a new tab)
- La Jornada Maya: Tucanes, ingeniería de excelencia de la naturaleza (opens in a new tab)
- Animal Diversity Web: Ramphastos sulfuratus (opens in a new tab)
- Wikipedia: Keel-billed toucan (opens in a new tab)
- Romero et al. 2022, Food Webs 31: e00223 (opens in a new tab)
- BirdLife International, Data Zone: Keel-billed Toucan (opens in a new tab)
- DOF, 14/11/2019: NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, Anexo III (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 7,351 records from 2015–2026 from eBird, iNaturalist, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.
Tell us where, or ask how to find one.
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