Sapayoa

Species of bird

The sapayoa or broad billed sapayoa (Sapayoa aenigma) is a suboscine passerine bird found Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama.

As the sapayoa's specific epithet aenigma ("the enigma") implies, its relationships have long been elusive. The sapayoa was formally described by the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert in 1903 under the present binomial name Sapayoa aenigma. It has always been considered a monotypic genus, Sapayoa, and historically regarded as a New World suboscine; in particular, it was assigned to the manakin family (Pipridae). However, the species was listed as incertae sedis (position uncertain) in the Sibley Ahlquist taxonomy, because
"preliminary DNA DNA hybridization comparisons indicate that this species is either a relative of the Old World Eurylaimidae or a sister group of all other Tyrannida, as suggested by earlier biochemical studies In any event, it is not a close relative of manakins or any other recent tyrannoid." More recent research suggests that it is not a New World suboscine at all, but an Old World suboscine. In 2004, it was shown that the sapayoa is an outlier to the New World suboscines. In an earlier analysis based on nDNA myoglobin intron 2 and GAPDH intron 11 sequence data, the authors found the sapayoa
"as a deep branch in the group of broadbills and pittas of the Old World tropics." Accordingly, the sapayoa would be the last surviving New World species of a lineage that evolved in Australia New Guinea when Gondwana was in the process of splitting apart. The sapayoa's ancestors are hypothesized to have reached South America via the Western Antarctica Peninsula. Beginning in about 2010, major taxonomic systems moved the sapayoa into its own family Sapayoidae. However, they differ in its placement in a linear sequence of families. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) places it second among passerine families, between Acanthisittidae (the New Zealand wrens) and Philepittidae (the Asities).

The sapayoa is found from the Panama Canal Zone south through western Colombia into extreme northwestern Ecuador. It inhabits humid forest from the understory to the mid level, and often occurs in ravines and near watercourses. In elevation it ranges as high as in Colombia but only to in Ecuador.

The sapayoa's vocalizations are not well known. One is "a soft trill" and another is "a slightly louder 'chipp, ch ch ch' ".

The IUCN has assessed the sapayoa as being of Least Concern, though its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is "[a]pparently rare to uncommon, and possibly rather local in distribution."