The rufescent tiger heron (Tigrisoma lineatum) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae. It is found in wetlands from Central America through much of South America.
Juvenile - Sacha Lodge - EcuadorT. l. lineatum, young adult, Panama
The rufescent tiger heron was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana.[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial nameArdea lineata in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.[4] The rufescent tiger heron is now placed in the genusTigrisoma that was erected by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827.[5][6] The genus name Tigrisoma combines the Ancient Greektigris, meaning "tiger" and somā, meaning "body"; the specific epithetlineatum is from the Latin lineatus meaning "marked with lines".[7]
The rufescent tiger heron is a medium-sized heron, measuring 26–30 in (66–76 cm) in length,[nb 1][9] with a mass between 630 and 980 g (22 and 35 oz).[10] The sexes are similarly plumaged.[11] The adult's head, neck and chest are dark rufous, with a white stripe down the center of the foreneck. The remainder of its upperparts are brownish with fine black vermiculations, its belly and vent are buffy-brown, and its flanks are barred black and white.[12] Its tail is black, narrowly barred with white.[13] Its stout bill is yellowish to dusky, and its legs are dull green.[12] Its irides, loral skin, and orbital ring are bright yellow.[13] Unlike other tiger herons, it has no powder down feathers on its back.[11]
The juvenile bird is rusty-buff overall, coarsely barred with black; the buff and black banding on its wings is especially pronounced. Its throat, central chest, and belly are white. It takes some five years to acquire adult plumage.[12]
The adult rufescent tiger heron is relatively easy to distinguish from fasciated and bare-throated tiger herons, as it is rufous (rather than primarily gray) on the head and neck. Young birds, however, are much more difficult to identify.[9]
The rufescent tiger heron is found in wetlands from Central America through much of South America.[12] It generally occurs below 500 m (1,600 ft), though it has been recorded as high as 1,600 m (5,200 ft) in Colombia.[9]
As might be expected of a species that spends most of its time by the water, much of the rufescent tiger heron's diet is aquatic-based, including fish, crustaceans, water beetles, and dragonfly larvae. It also takes adult dragonflies and grasshoppers.[11] It typically hunts alone, standing hunched in shallow pools or wet areas of a forest while it waits for prey.[9]
The rufescent tiger heron's main call is a low-pitched paired hoot, often given at night.[12] It also gives a fast series of sharp wok notes, which decrease in volume and speed, and a prolonged hoot, transcribed as ooooooo-ooh which rises markedly at the end.[9]
^Cramp, Stanley, ed. (1977). Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: Birds of the Western Palearctic, Volume 1, Ostrich to Ducks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN978-0-19-857358-6.
