Collared Puffbird

The collared puffbird (Bucco capensis) is bird in the family Bucconidae that is found across the northern region of South America in the Amazon Basin, southern Colombia and Venezuela, and the Guianas. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the collared puffbird in his Ornithologie that was based on a specimen collected in French Guiana. He used the French name Le barbu and the Latin name Bucco. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the collared puffbird. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Bucco capensis and cited Brisson's work. The specific name capensis denotes the Cape of Good Hope where Linnaeus mistakenly believed the birds occurred. The puffbirds are an insectivorous bird family, related to the jacamars but lacking the iridescent colours of that group. The collared puffbird grows to about 21 cm (8.3 in) in length, and prefers to sit and wait for prey, which has earned it nicknames such as "lazy bird" and "sleeper".