Parker's spinetail (''Cranioleuca vulpecula'') 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

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 ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, and

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 ...

.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. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved October 20, 2023

Taxonomy and systematics

Parker's spinetail was originally described as a species with 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 * ...

''Synallaxis vulpecula''.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 Later it was treated as a subspecies of the

rusty-backed spinetail The rusty-backed spinetail (''Cranioleuca vulpina'') is a Neotropical species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and possibly Guyana.Rem ...

(''Cranioleuca vulpina'') but starting in the late twentieth century it was separated again as a species in its own right. Later

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

work showed that it is not closely related to the rusty-backed spinetail but rather is a

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of the russet-mantled softtail (''C. berlepschi'').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 Parker's spinetail 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

Parker's spinetail is long and weighs . The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a faint 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 ...

and lores on an otherwise dusky gray face. Their crown, back, rump, and 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 ...

are rufous; the forecrown has narrow buff streaks. Their tail and wings are also rufous. Their throat is white and the rest of their underparts light brown or light brownish gray with indistinct whitish mottling. Their iris is brown or pale 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 ...

black, 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 grayish pink, and their legs and feet olive or grayish olive. Juveniles have a duller crown than adults.Schulenberg, T. S. and G. H. Rosenberg (2020). Parker's Spinetail (''Cranioleuca vulpecula''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.parspi1.01 retrieved November 13, 2023

Distribution and habitat

Parker's spinetail is found along the upper Amazon River and its major tributaries, from eastern Ecuador, northeastern Peru, and far northern Bolivia into western Brazil as far east as the Rio Negro. It almost exclusively inhabits the early-succession vegetation on young river islands. In elevation it is seldom found higher than but does reach in Ecuador.

Behavior

Movement

Parker's spinetail is not a migrant, but the extent of its local movements in response to the flooding of river islands during the rainy season is not known.

Feeding

Parker's spinetail feeds 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 details are lacking. It typically forages in the under- and mid-storeys of woody vegetation, and usually in pairs. It gleans its prey from bark, dead leaf clusters, and trapped debris while searching along trunks and limbs.

Breeding

Parker's spinetail is thought to be monogamous. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.

Vocalization

The song of Parker's spinetail is "an accelerating and descending series of nasal notes that ends in a chortle, e.g. ''tew-tew-tew-tew-trrrrrr''" and is similarly described as "an accelerating, rising-falling chatter of nasal notes: ''teer teew-tew'tu'tutrrr''".Schulenberg, T.S., D.F. Stotz, D.F. Lane, J.P. O’Neill, and T.A. Parker III. 2010. Birds of Peru. Revised and updated edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey Its calls include "a sharp, fast ''chut-chut''" given singly or tripled and "a longer, descending chatter, ''tchew-tew'tu'tu''.

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 Parker's spinetail as being of Least Concern. It has a large range and an unknown population size that is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered uncommon to fairly common in Peru and fairly common in Ecuador and the rest of its range. "Human activity has little short-term direct effect on Parker's Spinetail, other than the local effects of habitat destruction. 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." But changes to the Amazonian hydrology from deforestation, dam construction, or climate change might pose a longer-term threat.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1151424 Parker's spinetail Riverine birds of Amazonia Parker's spinetail Parker's spinetail Parker's spinetail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot