Purple-throated Fruitcrow

The purple-throated fruitcrow is 25 to 30 cm (9.8 to 12 in) long and weighs 91 to 133 g (3.2 to 4.7 oz). Adult males have glossy black upperparts and duller black underparts. Their throat feathers are dark reddish purple; they are long and square-tipped and form a "shield" to the sides and upper breast. Adult females are overall dull black and lack the shield though they may have a few crimson feathers on the throat. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a pale gray or silver gray bill with a black tip, and dusky gray to black legs and feet. Juveniles have a dull black crown, wings, and tail. They are otherwise brownish black with faint indistinct black bars.

The purple-throated fruitcrow has a disjunct distribution. One population is found in Central America from southeastern Nicaragua south along the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and Panama and also on the Pacific side of Panama from the Canal Zone south. Its range continues across north-central Colombia and the valleys of the Cauca and Magdalena rivers and south along the western slope of the Andes through Colombia into northwestern Ecuador as far as northern Los Ríos Province and spottily beyond. A second population is found from southeastern Venezuela east through the Guianas and extreme northern Brazil to the Atlantic in Amapá state. That range continues south in eastern Brazil to western Maranhão and Tocantins and from there west across southern Amazonian Brazil to the Andes in southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia. According to some sources it skirts a wide band of northern Amazonia. However, van Perlo's field guide shows the species occupying the entirety of the Amazon Basin. The purple-throated fruitcrow inhabits lowland evergreen forest in the tropical zone, where it prefers the forest's midstory to canopy. …

The purple-throated fruitcrow feeds primarily on fruit; adults also feed on large insects and feed nestlings mostly insects. The species typically forages in small groups (up to eight individuals) that usually stay to themselves but sometimes mix with other large species. They feed mostly in the forest's midstory to the canopy and take most fruit and insects with short sallies from a perch. Some fruits are taken while perched. They tend to regurgitate fruit seeds away from where they eat, "providing an effective method of seed dispersal for the plants it feeds on".