The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner (''Automolus cervinigularis'') 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

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

, and

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner's taxonomy is unsettled. Until July 2023, the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC) treated what are now the two subspecies of the fawn-throated foliage gleaner, with four other subspecies, as the buff-throated foliage gleaner. At that time the IOC split ''A. o. cervinigularis'' and ''A. o. hypophaeus'' from the buff-throated to form the new fawn-throated foliage-gleaner, which by the

principle of priority Priority is a principle in Taxonomy (biology), biological taxonomy by which a valid scientific name is established based on the oldest available name. It is a decisive rule in Botanical nomenclature, botanical and zoological nomenclature to recogn ...

took the

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms *Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials *Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition * ...

''A. cervinigularis''. The IOC renamed the remaining four subspecies the

ochre-throated foliage-gleaner The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner (''Automolus ochrolaemus'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Panama and every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paragu ...

to avoid confusion with the former, larger, buff-throated species. It retains the former binomial ''A. ochrolaemus''. The

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

had included a seventh subspecies, ''A. o. amusos'' ( Peters, 1929), in the buff-throated foliage-gleaner. In October 2023 Clements accepted the same split as the IOC and deleted ''A. o. amusos'' entirely.Clements, J. F., P.C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved October 28, 2023 The

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

has not recognized the split.Chesser, R. T., S. M. Billerman, K. J. Burns, C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, B. E. Hern ndez-Ba os, R. A. Jim nez, A. W. Kratter, N. A. Mason, P. C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., and K. Winker. 2023. Check-list of North American Birds (online). American Ornithological Society. https://checklist.americanornithology.org/taxa/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 28 September 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved October 20, 2023

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

's ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

'' does not recognize the split of fawn-throated foliage-gleaner, nor does it recognize ''A. o. amusos''. It includes ''A. o. exsertus'' as the seventh subspecies of its buff-throated foliage-gleaner.HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: https://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022 The IOC, Clements, and the

previously recognized ''exsertus'' as a separate species, the

Chiriqui foliage-gleaner The Chiriqui foliage-gleaner (''Automolus exsertus'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Costa Rica and Panama. Taxonomy and systematics The Chiriqui foliage-gleaner was origi ...

. The two subspecies of the fawn-throated foliage-gleaner are the

nominate Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list. Political office In th ...

''A. c. cervinigularis'' (

Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society ...

, 1857) and ''A. c. hypophaeus'' ( Ridgway, 1909).

Description

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner is long and weighs . It is a fairly large member of its genus and has a heavy bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a mostly dark brownish face with a bold buff eyering and stripe behind the eye, faint reddish streaks on the ear

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 ...

, and an ochraceous-buff malar area with faint dark flecks. Their crown and nape are dark brown with a faint blackish brown scallop pattern. Their back and rump are rich dark brown that blends to rufous uppertail coverts. Their wing coverts are rich dark brown and their flight feathers slightly paler and more rufescent. Their tail is rufous. Their throat is deep buff, their breast has a dusky scaling pattern on buff, and their belly is dusky buff. Their undertail coverts are pale buff. Their iris is brown to dark brown, their

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

dark gray, their

mandible In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

pale horn, and their legs and feet grayish. Subspecies ''A. c. hypophaeus'' is similar to the nominate, with a more ochraceous throat, a paler and mostly plain breast, and brighter rufous undertail coverts.Remsen Jr., J. V. and H. F. Greeney (2020). Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner (''Automolus ochrolaemus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.btfgle1.01 retrieved September 6, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of the fawn-throated foliage-gleaner is found from

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

in southern Mexico south through western Belize into northern Guatemala. Subspecies ''A. c. hypophaeus'' is found on the Caribbean slope from eastern Nicaragua through Costa Rica into northwestern Panama. The species inhabits lowland rainforest,

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

, and also coffee plantations. In elevation it reaches from sea level to about in Mexico and further south.

Behavior

Movement

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner feeds mostly on a variety of insects, spiders, and vertebrates like small frogs. It forages singly or in pairs and often (perhaps usually) joins

mixed-species feeding flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s. It forages in the forest's dense undergrowth and less often to its mid-storey, acrobatically gleaning and pulling prey from

epiphyte An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphyt ...

s, debris, and especially from clumps of dead leaves as it hops along branches and vines. It also forages on the ground by flipping aside leaf litter.

Breeding

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner's breeding season has not been defined. It nests in a burrow excavated in an earthen bank. Its clutch size is two or three eggs. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.

Vocalization

The fawn-throated foliage-gleaner's song is "a descending chortling rattle of 1-1.5 secs duration, often repeated steadily", and is sung mostly at dawn and dusk. It is also described as "a sputtering, nasal trill that slows and drops slightly at the end". Its calls include a "low, gruff ''shuk'', a sharp, nasal ''pe-duk'', and a hard ''tchehrr''".

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 ...

follows

's taxonomy and so has assessed the pre-split buff-throated foliage gleaner as a whole, with no separate evaluation of the two fawn-throated foliage-gleaner subspecies.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q118611725 Automolus Birds of Central America Birds described in 1857 Taxa named by Philip Sclater Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN