The Bolivian earthcreeper (''Tarphonomus harterti'') 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 Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
Furnariidae. 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 ...
and
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 ...
.
Taxononomy and systematics
The Bolivian earthcreeper has at times been placed in genera ''
Ochetorhynchus
''Ochetorhynchus'' is a genus of earthcreeper (disambiguation), earthcreepers, birds in the family Furnariidae. They are found in open to semi-open habitats in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru.
The genus contains the following species:
* Roc ...
'' and ''
Upucerthia
''Upucerthia'' is a genus of bird in the family Furnariidae.
Taxonomy and etymology
''Upucerthia'' is a genus of bird in the family Furnariidae. Established by French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1832, it contains four species ...
'' but since the early 2000s has been placed in its current ''Tarphonomus''.
[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 31 May 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved May 31, 2023] It has at times been 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 ...
with the other member of ''Tarphonomus'', the
Chaco earthcreeper (''T. certhioides''). The two of them are
sisters
A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...
to the
rusty-winged barbtail
The rusty-winged barbtail (''Premnornis guttuliger'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The rusty-winged barb ...
(''Premnornis guttuliger''), and these three are in turn sisters to the tuftedcheeks of genus ''
Pseudocolaptes''.
[
The Bolivian earthcreeper 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 Bolivian earthcreeper is about long and weighs . It is a small earthcreeper with a long and very slightly decurved bill. The sexes' plumages are alike. Adults have a wide buff 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 ...
on a mostly dark brownish face. Their crown is dark brown, their back and rump rich brown, and their uppertail coverts
A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail.
Ear coverts
The ear coverts are small feathers behind t ...
reddish brown. Most of their tail feathers have rufous-chestnut bases that blend to