PLATINUM The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles OPEN ACCESS online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of artcles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Note First record of Touit melanonotus (Wied, 1820) (Aves: Psittaciformes: Psittacidae) in Cantareira State Park, Brazil: new colonization or simply unnoticed? Marcos Antônio Melo & David de Almeida Braga 26 January 2021 | Vol. 13 | No. 1 | Pages: 17569–17573 DOI: 10.11609/jot.5855.13.1.17569-17573 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. The journal, the publisher, the host, and the part- Publisher & Host ners are not responsible for the accuracy of the politcal boundaries shown in the maps by the authors. Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2021 | 13(1): 17569–17573 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5855.13.1.17569-17573 #5855 | Received 10 March 2020 | Final received 23 November 2020 | Finally accepted 24 December 2020 NOTE First record of Touit melanonotus (Wied, 1820) (Aves: Psitaciformes: Psitacidae) in Cantareira State Park, Brazil: new colonizaton or simply unnotced? Marcos Antônio Melo 1 & David de Almeida Braga 2 ¹ Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Recursos Naturais, Universidade Federal de São Carlos – UFSCar. Rodovia Washington Luiz, km 235, 13565-905, São Carlos, SP, Brazil. 1,² Seção Técnica de Manejo de Fauna em Vida Livre, Departamento de Conservação de Biodiversidade, Secretaria de Meio Ambiente da Prefeitura de Guarulhos. Av. Dona Glória Pagnoncelli, 344, CEP, Guarulhos, SP, Brazil. ¹ [email protected] (corresponding author), ² [email protected] A avifauna do Parque Estadual da Cantareira (PEC, 1,700m (Leal et al. 2018). It is 15cm in length and 66.5g São Paulo, Brazil) apresenta 120 anos de estudos, in weight, a forest specialist that feeds mainly on fruits mas inexistam registros do apuim-de-costas-pretas and forages on varied forest strata (Parker III et al. 1996; Touit melanonotus. Aqui, apresentamos seu primeiro Sick 1997; Wilman et al. 2014). Historically, human registro e item alimentar (frutos de Ocotea sp.) no PEC, actvites associated with agricultural and livestock, discutndo o seu potencial de cruzar paisagens urbanas and recently with urbanizaton, however, have resulted ou ter passado despercebido por longo período. in serious habitat loss and degradaton in the Atlantc Palavras-chave: Mata Atlântca; Extensão de Forest (Ribeiro et al. 2009). Nowadays, this biome distribuição; Endemismo; Urbanização; Ameaçada de presents a highly fragmented landscape with few forest extnção. patches larger than 100ha, mostly confned to the Serra Touit is a genus of Psitacidae comprising small (14– do Mar mountains (Ribeiro et al. 2009). Consequently, T. 18 cm) parrotlets (Straube et al. 2010) with eight species melanonotus populatons are declining and are actually restricted to the Neotropical region (del Hoyo et al. classifed as Vulnerable in regional and global red lists of 2019). The Brown-backed Parrotlet Touit melanonotus threatened species (Brasil 2014; São Paulo 2018; IUCN is a rare psitacid endemic of the Brazilian Atlantc Forest 2019). (Parker III et al. 1996; Sick 1997) and restricted to the The forests of Serra do Mar contnuum are Serra do Mar endemism center (Cracraf 1985), whose responsible for the maintenance and conservaton distributon is from southern Bahia to Santa Catarina of all known T. melanonotus populatons (Leal et al. (Vallejos et al. 2013; Leal et al 2018). The Brown-backed 2018). Its absence is notceable as distance increases Parrotlet is recorded mostly between 500 and 1,000 m from the Serra do Mar contnuum (see map in Schunck alttude, although there are records from sea level to 2009) even in the largest forest remnants (> 5,000ha) Editor: Michael J. Parr, American Bird Conservancy, Washington, USA. Date of publicaton: 26 January 2021 (online & print) Citaton: Melo, M.A. & D.A. Braga (2021). First record of Touit melanonotus (Wied, 1820) (Aves: Psitaciformes: Psitacidae) in Cantareira State Park, Brazil: new colonizaton or simply unnotced? Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(1): 17569–17573. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5855.13.1.17569-17573 Copyright: © Melo & Braga 2021. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: None. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Acknowledgements: We are gratefull to: BirdLife Internatonal for providing data base of range distributon; Alexsander Zamorano Antunes provided non- published records; and Ana Lucia Arromba & Vladimir Arrais de Almeida for invitng us to partcipate in a technical meet and give us the opportunity to record this species in CSP. 17569 J TT First record of Touit melanonotus in Cantareira State Park Melo & Braga in the Atlantc Plateau of São Paulo such as Morro Capivari-Monos Environmental Protecton Area (EPA) Grande Forest Reserve (Develey & Martensen 2006) and Curucutu administratve zone of Serra do Mar State and Cantareira State Park (São Paulo 2009; Tonet et al. Park (Melo et al. 2016; Schunck et al. 2019), 90km from 2017). This context has supported the inference about a private area (Solo Sagrado de Guarapiranga property) the high sensitvity of this parrotlet and it restricton for (Melo et al. 2011), and 89km from Serra da Mantqueira crossing the non-forest habitat matrix (Leal et al. 2018) (Wege & Long 1995) (Figure 1). which would make it impossible for it to pass through a There is litle informaton on diet items and feeding highly fragmented landscape infuenced by more than behavior of T. melanonotus. Fruits of Maytenus sp. 40km of the urbanized area of the São Paulo “megacity”. (Schunck et al. 2008), Clusia criuva (Simpson & Simpson Frequently, low bird sampling eforts are inefcient 2012), Rapanea acuminata (Juniper & Parr 1998), and to detect rare species of birds. There are few bird studies Struthanthus vulgaris (Vallejos et al. 2013) are the food conducted in Morro Grande Forest Reserve (Develey & items recorded for this rare parrotlet. To our knowledge, Martensen 2006; Boscolo et al. 2006) compared with this is the frst tme that fruits of Ocotea sp. (Lauracea) Cantareira State Park (CSP) for which there is a large have been recorded in their diet. We observed two birds amount of ornithological knowledge (Tonet et al. hanging upside down to reach the fruits, which adopted 2017). From the end of the 19th century to the 1960’s, non-plucker behavior; although the plucker strategy has several collectors sampled birds in CSP (Pinto 1938, been observed for the majority of birds when eatng 1944; Graham 1992). Graham performed the frst avian fruits of C. criuva (Simpson & Simpson 2012). community study (Graham 1992) and other studies The presence of these birds in CSP calls atenton were carried out between 2000 and 2017 (Antunes & to two questons: (i) is it possible this species has been Eston 2008; Antunes et al. 2009; São Paulo 2009; Tonet unnotced in CSP for more than a century? and (ii) is & Pizo 2016; Tonet et al. 2017). Moreover, many it evidence that T. melanonotus could cross altered researchers and birdwatchers have visited CSP and human landscapes between CSP and other large Atlantc have made contributons to the knowledge of the bird Forest fragments? To respond to these questons, we richness in the park. The last compilaton demonstrated suspect the vocal similarity of T. melanonotus to other a total of 326 bird species confrmed in CSP (Tonet et birds could be a reason for it being misidentfed in the al. 2017), however, even afer more than 120 years, T. past if only heard and not seen. In the São Paulo state, melanonotus had not been recorded. voices of syntopic birds (e.g., Megarhynchus pitangua The present study has shown a frst record of T. and Pionopsita pileata) have not been a strong source melanonotus in the CSP, the largest urban forest of of identfcaton errors as observed in other regions the world (Ayres 2008). In the morning (08:18h) of 18 (Vallejos et al. 2013). On the other hand, T. surdus, a October 2019, we heard and observed 10 individuals species without documentaton in this state of São Paulo of T. melanonotus at Pedra Grande, an administratve (Silveira & Uezu 2011), has been confounded with T. CSP zone (-23.438920 & -46.631539, 945m), in the melanonotus by researchers in the past (Bencke et al. municipality of São Paulo, SP, Brazil. The fock was 2006). The rarity and difculty of voice identfcaton perched in the canopy (~15m high) and feeding on of T. melanonotus explains its apparent long absence fruits of Ocotea sp. Aubl. (Lauraceae). We saw just from Santa Catarina state, even in a well-studied region two birds eatng fruits atached to the stalks, and they (Vallejos et al. 2013). Although this parrotlet is recorded remained upside down to reach the fruits.