Jf. Pacheco et al., NEW GENUS AND SPECIES OF FURNARIID (AVES, FURNARIIDAE) FROM THE COCOA-GROWING REGION OF SOUTHEASTERN BAHIA, BRAZIL, The Wilson bulletin, 108(3), 1996, pp. 397-433
We here describe Acrobatornis fonsecai, a new genus and species in the
Furnariidae, from the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Bahia, Brazil.
Among the outstanding features of this small, arboreal form are: black
-and-gray definitive plumage lacking any rufous; juvenal plumage marke
dly different from adult; stout, bright-pink legs and feet; and its ac
robatic foraging behavior involving almost constant inverted hangs on
foliage and scansorial creeping along the undersides of canopy limbs.
Analysis of morphology, vocalizations, and behavior suggest to us a ph
ylogenetic position close to Asthenes and Cranioleuca; in some respect
s, it appears close to the equally obscure Xenerpestes and Metopothrix
. New data on the morphology, vocalizations, and behavior of several f
urnariids possibly related to Acrobatornis are presented in the contex
t of intrafamilial relationships. We theorize that Acrobatornis could
have colonized its current range during an ancient period of continent
al semiaridity that promoted the expansion of stick-nesting prototypes
from a southern, Chaco-Patagonian/Pantanal center, and today represen
ts a relict that survived by adapting to build its stick-nest in the r
elatively dry, open, canopy of leguminaceous trees of the contemporary
humid forest in southeastern Bahia. Another theory of origin places e
mphasis on the fact that the closest relatives of practically all (if
not all) other birds syntopic with Acrobatornis are of primarily Amazo
nian distribution. Acrobatornis fonsecai has a most unusual distributi
on in a restricted region in which lowland Atlantic Forest has been co
nverted virtually entirely to cocoa plantations. Until very recently a
lucrative and vitally important source of income for Bahia, the econo
mic base for cocoa production has suffered catastrophic, apparently ir
recoverable, decline owing to ''witch's broom'' disease, which has pro
ven resistant to all forms of control. The predictable wave to cut and
sell the tall trees shading failing cocoa plantations has already beg
un in earnest with the consequence that the remnant forest canopies in
this region, upon which Acrobatornis fonsecai is totally dependent, a
re being rapidly destroyed. This remarkable new furnariid and the secr
ets it holds for elucidation of phylogeny, evolutionary history, speci
ation patterns, and zoogeography, if not safeguarded immediately, when
its habitat is still for sale, could disappear in the coming decade.