Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo

Neomorphus geoffroyi

The rufous-vented ground cuckoo (Neomorphus geoffroyi) is a large terrestrial species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in humid primary forests from southern Nicaragua, through Costa Rica and Panama, into north-western Colombia. Another population occurs in the western and southern Amazon Basin of south-eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern Bolivia and Brazil, while a final population occurs in the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil. Much confusion exists over the exact limits of its distribution in the south-central Amazon, where the very similar scaled ground cuckoo occurs (the breast-markings typically used to separate the scaled and the rufous-vented ground cuckoos are known to vary clinally). Consequently, the scaled ground cuckoo has often been considered a subspecies of the rufous-vented ground cuckoo.