It is a commonly-accepted fact among Zoochat as it has been for years that the pavonine quetzal, Pharomachrus pavoninus, was last held in Europe in 2002 at Wuppertal Zoo. This factoid has been on Zootierliste for years also.
But as of recent, doubt was cast in my mind as I found a book regarding quetzals and trogons that was published in the year 2000. The book classified the golden-headed quetzal as a subspecies of pavonine quetzal, and the crested quetzal a subspecies of resplendent quetzal. I recall it was then that made me wonder - could it be that the Wuppertal animal could've been golden-headed all this time, and not pavonine? I recall it was that something similar happened in 2014 in Italy when a collection received golden-headed quetzals, but the taxonomy used by that collection's curator dubbed them as pavonine. So could Wuppertal have been similar?
For a while this was merely a suspicion as I never could find any images of quetzals kept at Wuppertal. That is until today, when I managed to find one.
Although the head of this bird is green, this is true of many GH Quetzals, so this is not a distinguishing trait. What stands out as more defining is the colour of the beak. The true Pavonine Quetzal has a reddish coloured beak, where the Golden Headed Quetzal has a yellow beak.
And I think it can be agreed that this bird's beak is yellow - meaning that it cannot be a Pavonine Quetzal!
So I think we can say that this factoid no longer holds up.
But as of recent, doubt was cast in my mind as I found a book regarding quetzals and trogons that was published in the year 2000. The book classified the golden-headed quetzal as a subspecies of pavonine quetzal, and the crested quetzal a subspecies of resplendent quetzal. I recall it was then that made me wonder - could it be that the Wuppertal animal could've been golden-headed all this time, and not pavonine? I recall it was that something similar happened in 2014 in Italy when a collection received golden-headed quetzals, but the taxonomy used by that collection's curator dubbed them as pavonine. So could Wuppertal have been similar?
For a while this was merely a suspicion as I never could find any images of quetzals kept at Wuppertal. That is until today, when I managed to find one.
Although the head of this bird is green, this is true of many GH Quetzals, so this is not a distinguishing trait. What stands out as more defining is the colour of the beak. The true Pavonine Quetzal has a reddish coloured beak, where the Golden Headed Quetzal has a yellow beak.
And I think it can be agreed that this bird's beak is yellow - meaning that it cannot be a Pavonine Quetzal!
So I think we can say that this factoid no longer holds up.
