The austral negrito or Patagonian negrito (''Lessonia rufa'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Tyrannidae The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) comprise a Family (biology), family of passerine birds which is found virtually throughout North America, North and South America. It is the world's largest family of birds, with more than 400 species, and is ...

, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

, and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

and has occurred as a

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and on the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, G. Del-Rio, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 30 March 2025. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved 30 March 2025

Taxonomy and systematics

The austral negrito was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist

Johann Friedrich Gmelin Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German natural history, naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist. Education Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp F ...

in his revised and expanded edition of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

's ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

''. He placed it with the larks in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Alauda ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species a ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Alauda rufa''. The specific epithet is from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''rufus'' meaning "red", "ruddy" or "rufous". Gmelin based his description on "L'alouette noire à dos fauve" from

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath, the

Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. He held the position of ''intendant'' (director) at the ''Jardin du Roi'', now called the Jardin des plant ...

and illustrated with a hand-colored engraving by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - c. 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Although trained as an engineer and draftsman, he began to produce engravings for books and it later became his primary profession. Martinet's year of b ...

. The austral negrito now shares genus ''Lessonia'' with the

Andean negrito The Andean negrito (''Lessonia oreas'') is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, G. Del-Rio, A. Jara ...

(''L. oreas''); that genus was erected in 1832 by

William Swainson William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swains ...

. The two were long considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

. Late in the twentieth century they were separated based primarily on plumage differences, and a 2014 publication added differences in feather structure and courtship displays to the evidence.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, G. Del-Rio, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 30 March 2025. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved 30 March 2025Areta, J.I. and Miller, E.H. (2014). Display flight and mechanical sounds of the Andean Negrito (''Lessonia oreas''), with comments on the basic structure of flight displays in fluvicoline flycatchers. Orn. Neotrop. 25(1):95–105. The austral negrito is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

Description

The austral negrito is long. Adult males are mostly black with a rufous-chestnut back. Their flight feathers are black without the pale inner webs that the Andean negrito has. Adult females are smaller than males. They have a brownish gray crown, a white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also k ...

and cheek, and a dark brown "collar" on their nape and upper back. Their lower back is dull rufous-brown. Their wings and tail are black with whitish edges on the outer web of the outermost tail feathers. Their chin is whitish, their breast buffy white with grayish brown streaks, their flanks and belly buff, and their vent area whitish. Juveniles are similar to adult females but with a more rufescent back. Both sexes have a dark iris and a short black bill. Their legs and feet are black with exceptionally long hindclaws like those of a

pipit The pipits are a cosmopolitan genus, ''Anthus'', of small passerine birds with medium to long tails. Along with the wagtails and longclaws, the pipits make up the family Motacillidae. The genus is widespread, occurring across most of the world, ...

.Farnsworth, A., D. J. Lebbin, and G. M. Kirwan (2025). Austral Negrito (''Lessonia rufa''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, E. de Juana, and F. Medrano, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.ausneg1.01.1 retrieved April 24, 2025

Distribution and habitat

The austral negrito is found along the entire length of Chile to

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

. It also is found from south-central Bolivia south through Argentina to

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

, across southern Paraguay, in far southern Brazil, and in Uruguay. There are records of vagrant individuals from Peru and the Falkland Islands. In addition there is one record from King George Island in the South Shetlands and one at sea near Antarctica. The austral negrito inhabits open grassy landscapes at the margins of lakes and marshes, coastal lagoons, beaches, and pastures. In elevation it mostly occurs below but locally is found as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The austral negrito is a complete migrant. It breeds in Chile from the Coquimbo Region south to Cape Horn and in Argentina from Mendoza and

La Pampa La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza. History In ...

provinces south into Tierra del Fuego. It vacates that area for the austral winter, moving north primarily to coastal northern Chile, northern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Paraguay and Bolivia. Males leave the breeding grounds before females and single-sex migrant flocks have been noted. It also winters in far southern Brazil and a few individuals have also reached southern Peru.

Feeding

The austral negrito feeds primarily on insects. The vagrant King George Island bird was seen feeding on algae in addition to taking insects from under it. The species is mostly terrestrial but will often perch on rocks, low bushes, and fences. It mostly forages in pairs during the breeding season and often in small flocks on the wintering grounds. It typically catches prey between runs on the ground. It has been observed following livestock and people in pastures, apparently to catch insects disturbed by them.

Breeding

The austral negrito breeds between September and November in mainland Chile, October to January on Tierra del Fuego, and October to January in Argentina. Males make a fluttering display flight as high as above the ground. The species' nest is an open cup made from grass and other fibers lined with feathers. It is placed on the ground or on a cliff ledge and often hidden by vegetation. The clutch is two to four eggs. Females alone attend nestlings. The incubation period, time to fledging, and other details of parental care are not known.

Vocalization

The austral negrito is not highly vocal. Its alarm call is "a repeated ''tjit-tjit''" and its contact call "a short twitter". Males call "''sipsipsipsip-sereen''" during their display flight.

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the austral negrito as being of Least Concern. It has a large range; its population size is not known and is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered fairly common to locally abundant and "increasingly common in he southernpart of range". It occurs in all of the national parks in the Patagonian Andes.