The Inca wren (''Pheugopedius eisenmanni'') 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 Troglodytidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The Inca wren 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 ...

. Curiously, this species was not detected by professionals until the 1960s and not described until 1985, though it is regularly encountered at

Machu Picchu Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at . Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire. It is located in the ...

.Schulenberg, T.S. and T. Johnson (2020). Inca Wren (''Pheugopedius eisenmanni''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY.

Description

The Inca wren is long; males weigh and females . The adult male has a dull black crown and nape, a broad 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 a black and white streaked face. Its shoulders, back, and rump are bright russet and the tail is russet with dusky bars. Its throat is white and the breast and belly are white with bold black streaks. Its flanks are dull yellowish brown. The adult female's crown is charcoal gray, its underparts' streaking is only on the breast, and the tail is less barred than the male's. The juvenile is duller overall, with a brown crown and unstreaked light grayish brown underparts.

Distribution and habitat

The Inca wren is found only in a small area of Peru's

Department of Cuzco Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth-largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de Dios and Puno ...

, on the east side of the Andes at elevations between . It inhabits the under and middle stories of humid

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

and its edges. It especially favors dense stands of

Chusquea ''Chusquea'' is a genus of evergreen bamboos in the grass family. Most of them are native to mountain habitats in Latin America, from Mexico to southern Chile and Argentina. They are sometimes referred to as South American mountain bamboos. Unl ...

bamboo.

Behavior

Feeding

The Inca wren is known to be insectivorous though details of its diet have been little reported. It forages near the ground in bamboo and other dense foliage, usually in pairs but also in groups of up to six individuals. It seldom joins

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

Breeding

Almost nothing is known about the Inca wren's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

. Fledglings have been observed in May.

Vocalization

Male and female Inca wrens sing duets, "a rich, varied, warbled series of whistled phrases

One call is "a rich ''tchp'' or ''tchp-er'', sometimes in chattered serie

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 Inca wren as being of Least Concern. Though it has a small range, its population is believed to be increasing. "Given that this species occupies disturbed habitats, it may even benefit, locally, from human activities, such as a low level of clearing for subsistence agriculture and road construction."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4763198 Inca wren Birds of the Peruvian Andes Endemic birds of Peru Inca wren Taxonomy articles created by Polbot