New records of the Forbes’s Blackbird Curaeus forbesi (Sclater, 1886) in the state of Minas Gerais, with comments on its conservation Luiz Gabriel Mazzoni 1 , Daniel Esser 2 , Eduardo de Carvalho Dutra 3 , Alyne Perillo 1 and Rodrigo Morais 4 1. Programa de Pós-graduação em Zoologia de Vertebrados, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais. Avenida Dom José Gaspar, 500, CEP 30535-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil. E-mail: luizmaz@hotmail.com 2. Rua Mário Bento da Silva, 133, CEP 31270-590, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil. 3. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais. Avenida Dom José Gaspar, 500, CEP 30535-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil. 4. Mestrado em Ecologia de Ecossistemas, Centro Universitário de Vila Velha. Rua Comissário José Dantas Melo, 21, CEP 29102-770, Vila Velha, Espírito Santo, Brasil. Received on 15 August 2011. Accepted on 07 February 2012. RESUMO: Novos registros do anumará Curaeus forbesi (Sclater, 1886) no estado de Minas Gerais, com comentários sobre sua conservação. O anumará Curaeus forbesi, espécie ameaçada da Mata Atlântica, tem sua ocorrência documentada em apenas duas localidades do sudeste do Brasil. Três novas localidades de ocorrência da espécie na bacia do Rio Doce são apresentadas, resultando num aumento significativo da distribuição conhecida da espécie em sua porção meridional. Também são discutidos registros anteriores não documentados da espécie e apresentados comentários sobre sua conservação no estado de Minas Gerais. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Curaeus forbesi, Mata Atlântica, bacia do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais. ABSTRACT: New records of the Forbes’s Blackbird Curaeus forbesi (Sclater, 1886) in the state of Minas Gerais, with comments on its conservation. The Forbes´s Blackbird Curaeus forbesi (Sclater, 1886), an endangered species endemic to the Atlantic Forest, has its occurrence documented from only two localities of southeastern Brazil. Here we report on three new localities in the Rio Doce basin, state of Minas Gerais, where C. forbesi has been documented, resulting in a significant extension of the known species’ distribution in its southern part. We also discuss previous undocumented records of C. forbesi and comment on its conservation status in the state of Minas Gerais. KEY-WORDS: Curaeus forbesi, Atlantic Forest, Doce River basin, Minas Gerais. The Forbes’s Blackbird Curaeus forbesi is an Atlantic Forest endemic (Parker et al. 1996) and globally endan- gered species, which inhabits forests, forest edges, and ad- jacent marshy areas (Jaramillo and Burke 1999, BirdLife International 2011). It is considered vulnerable in Brazil (Silveira and Straube 2008) and critically endangered in Minas Gerais (Copam 2010), the only state in the coun- try known to harbor southeastern populations of this spe- cies, at least 1.400 km away from those of northeastern Brazil (BirdLife International 2011). In Minas Gerais, the Forbes’s Blackbird occurrence is documented from only two localities: the Rio Doce State Park (Willis and Oniki 1991, Sick 1997), where two specimens were collected by G. T. Mattos and E. Dente in 1978 (currently held at the Departamento de Zoologia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte under accession numbers DZUFMG 186 and DZUFMG 187); and from the municipality of Raul Soares, where historical specimens have also been collected and are now held at the Los Angeles County Museum (Short and Parks 1979). Additionally, there are records from the municipality of Pirapora, Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park (Vasconcelos et al. 2006), and one (unconfirmed) from the middle São Francisco Valley, municipality of Januária (Willis and Oniki 1991). The latter two records are probably erroneous and lack proper documentation, as we discuss below. METHODS Here we present information on three new docu- mented records of the Forbes’s Blackbird Curaeus forbesi in the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil, two of them located in the Rio Doce upper basin and one in the Rio Manhuaçu basin, a tributary of the Rio Doce (Figure 1). Vocalizations were recorded with Sony PCM-M10 digital tape-recorder and Sony ECM-674 shotgun microphone. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 20(1), 44-47 Março de 2012 / March 2012 ARTIGO/ARTICLE