Penelope superciliaris
O. D. E. Vargas. Taxonomy and geographic distribution of
Penelope superciliaris complex Temminck, 1815 (Aves: Galliformes: Cracidae). Dissertação de Mestrado, São Paulo, 2017.
Abstract:
Penelope superciliaris Temminck, 1815, known as Rusty-margined Guan, is a forest guan with the widest distribution, occurring in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia, being also one of the seven species of the genus Penelope distributed in Brazil. Its subspecies have been described based on the width and shade of edges of feathers, the development of the superciliary stripe, naked parts pigmentation, general plumage coloration and size. The taxonomy of this taxon is complex and even today many authors never reached a consensus on the validity of the subordinate taxa; most of them recognize only three subspecies: P. s. superciliaris, P. s. jacupemba and P. s. major; other populations proposed as new races are currently synonymized with the previous three. For this complex, no review was conducted in the last 70 years that is why, with recent collection of new material, I performed a taxonomic revision based on external morphological characters. The aim on this work is to verify how many taxa exist at the species level in the Penelope superciliaris complex, and delimit their respective geographic distributions. To achieve these goals, we performed qualitative analyzes of external morphological characters as plumage coloration, naked parts pigmentation, and were tested inter- and intra-populational variations according to these characters. For statistical analyzes we performed univariate and multivariate tests to evaluate the sexual dimorphism and geographical variation. From eighteen geographic groups formed, the qualitative analyzes reveals that there is no sexual dimorphism, and most of them have a high degree of individual variation. Statistical analyzes did not discriminate the sexes and populations based on the eight body measurements used, but the taxa were discriminated by plumage coloration and naked parts pigmentation. According to the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), we consider that the Penelope superciliaris complex must be divided in four species: Penelope pseudonyma Neumann, 1933, a blue-faced guans population restricted to the Madeira-Tapajós interfluvium in the Amazon forest; Penelope ochromitra Neumann, 1933, from the Caatinga and Cerrado that borders with this biome; Penelope alagoensis Nardelli, 1993, from the Pernambuco Center of Endemism; and Penelope superciliaris Temminck, 1815, which occurs in the rest of the distribution of the complex.