The Itatiaia spinetail (''Asthenes moreirae''), also known as the Itatiaia thistletail, 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
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 ...
to southeastern
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 ...
.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Itatiaia spinetail was long placed in the
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 ...
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 ...
''Oreophylax'' and by some authors in ''Schizoeaca'', but genetic data published in 2011 places it and all other members of ''Schizoeaca'' firmly in ''Asthenes''.
[Derryberry, E. P., S. Claramunt, G. Derryberry, R. T. Chesser, J. Cracraft, A. Aleixo, J. Pérez-Emán, J. V. Remsen, Jr., and R. T. Brumfield. (2011). Lineage diversification and morphological evolution in a large-scale continental radiation: the Neotropical ovenbirds and woodcreepers (Aves: Furnariidae). Evolution 65(10):2973–2986. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01374.x] It has no subspecies.
[
]
Description
The Itatiaia spinetail is long and weighs . It is one of the smaller members of its genus. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a mostly dull brown face, sometimes with a faint paler eyering. Their crown, upperparts, wings, and tail are uniformly dark brown. Their tail feathers lack most barbs at the end, giving them a spiny appearance. Their chin and throat are pale dingy buff with a tawny ochraceous patch in the center of the latter. Their underparts are pale buffy brown that is palest in the center of the belly and browner on the flanks. Their iris is 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 ...
blackish, 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 ...
brownish horn, and their legs and feet dark grayish. Juveniles have a smaller throat patch than adults and their breast has some brown barring.[Remsen, Jr., J. V. (2020). Itatiaia Spinetail (''Asthenes moreirae''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.itaspi1.01 retrieved September 26, 2023]
Distribution and habitat
The Itatiaia spinetail is found in the mountains of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...
, São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...
, and Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo (; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attracti ...
states. It is named for Serra do Itatiaia and also occurs in Serra do Caraça and Serra dos Órgãos
The Serra dos Órgãos ("Organ Range") is a mountain range in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It contains the Serra dos Órgãos National Park.
Location
The Serra dos Órgãos is the name of the region of the Serra do Mar in the central ...
. It inhabits semi-humid to humid montane scrublands, ''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 thickets, and areas of tall grass near scrub. It usually occurs above tree line
The tree line is the edge of a habitat at which trees are capable of growing and beyond which they are not. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low ...
, from .[
]
Behavior
Movement
The Itatiaia spinetail is a year-round resident throughout its range.[
]
Feeding
The Itatiaia spinetail feeds mostly on arthropod
Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...
s but also includes small fruits in its diet. It usually forages in pairs, sometimes in groups of three, staying near the ground. It gleans prey from foliage and branches and sometimes is quite acrobatic when foraging.[
]
Breeding
The Itatiaia spinetail makes an oval nest of moss with some twigs around the outside and an entrance near the top. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.[
]
Vocalization
The Itatiaia spinetail's song is an "accelerating series of extr. high, slightly rising notes 'you-tee-wiwiwiwi' ". Its call is a "low 'piuw' ".[
]
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 Itatiaia spinetail as being of Least Concern. It has a restricted range and an unknown population size that is believed to be decreasing. Stresses to its habitat due to climate change are expected to adversely affect the species.[ It is considered uncommon to locally fairly common and occurs in two national parks. "Burning of timber-line ]ecotone
An ecotone is a transitional area between two plant communities, where these meet and integrate. Examples include areas between grassland and forest, estuaries and lagoon, freshwater and sea water etc. An ecotone may be narrow or wide, and it ma ...
vegetation a major threat".[
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1274371
Itatiaia spinetail
Birds of Brazil
Endemic birds of Brazil
Itatiaia spinetail
Itatiaia spinetail
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot