It inhabits the canopy of wet forest and feeds on fruit and some invertebrates. It has an orange erectile crest, black-spotted yellowish underparts and scaling on the head and neck. As its name implies, it has a straight, pointed beak, which gives its common name.
Sharpbills are most commonly found in tall dense forests but occasionally venture to the forest edge. Their diet consists of primarily of fruit, but they will also take insects, hanging upside down in from twigs to obtain insect larvae. They will also travel in mixed-species feeding flocks with ovenbirds, tanagers, woodpeckers and cotingas. The breeding system employed by this species is polygamous with closely grouped males displaying in from a lek.[2] The nest of the sharpbill is built by the female and is a small cup built on a slender branch. Chicks are fed by regurgitation.
The genus Oxyruncus was erected by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1820.[3] The sharpbill was described in 1821 by the English naturalist William John Swainson under the binomial nameOxyrhuncus cristatus with an "h" inserted into the name of the genus.[4][5] The word Oxyruncus is from the Ancient Greek oxus for "sharp" or "pointed" and rhunkhos "bill". The specific epithet is from the Latin cristatus for "crested" or "plumed".[6]
Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the sharpbill occupies a basal position in a clade containing the Tityridae.[7][8][9][10] The sharpbill is sometimes placed in its own family Oxyruncidae.[10][11]
^Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2017). "Tyrant flycatchers". World Bird List Version 7.3. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
Charles G. Sibley; Scott M. Lanyon; Jon E. Ahlquist (1984) "The relationships of the Sharpbill (Oxyruncus cristatus)" Condor86(1) 48–52.
