The plumbeous antbird (''Myrmelastes hyperythrus'') 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 subfamily Thamnophilinae of family

Thamnophilidae The antbirds are a large passerine bird family, Thamnophilidae, found across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. There are more than 230 species, known variously as antshrikes, antwrens, antvireos, fire ...

, the "typical antbirds". 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 ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

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 4 March 2024. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved March 5, 2024

Taxonomy and systematics

The plumbeous antbird was described by the English zoologist

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an England, 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 ...

in 1855 and given the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Thamnophilus hyperythrus''. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

words ''hupo'' "beneath" and ''eruthros'' "red". Alternatively, the name may be from the Greek word ''huperuthros'' for "reddish". The current genus ''

Myrmelastes ''Myrmelastes'' is a genus of passerine birds in the antbird family (Thamnophilidae). The eight recognised species inhabit the understorey of lowland and sub‑montane evergreen forests of the Amazon Basin and the Guiana Shield, from sea level to ...

'' was introduced by Sclater in 1858 with the plumbeous antbird as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

. This placement was confirmed by a genetic study published in 2013. The plumbeous antbird 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 plumbeous antbird is long and weighs . Males are mostly dark slaty gray. Their wings and tail are blackish gray with white spots at the tips of the wing

covert Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controver ...

s. They have a large area of bare light blue skin around their eye. Females have dark slaty gray upperparts, wings, and tail like males. Their underparts are bright rufous with a brown tinge on their flanks and crissum.Zimmer, K. and M.L. Isler (2020). Plumbeous Antbird (''Myrmelastes hyperythrus''), 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.pluant1.01 retrieved July 27, 2024Schulenberg, 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. Plate 172.

Distribution and habitat

The plumbeous antbird is found in the western

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...

. It ranges from

Caquetá Department Caquetá Department () is a department of Colombia. Located in the Amazonas region, Caquetá borders with the departments of Cauca and Huila to the west, the department of Meta to the north, the department of Guaviare to the northeast, th ...

in southern Colombia and Sucumbíos and Orellana provinces in northeastern Ecuador south through eastern Peru into northwestern Bolivia and east in Brazil to the basin of the

Purus River The Purus River (Portuguese: ''Rio Purus''; Spanish: ''Río Purús'') is a tributary of the Amazon River in South America. Its drainage basin is , and the mean annual discharge is . The river shares its name with the Alto Purús National Park a ...

. It inhabits the floor and understorey of

evergreen forest An evergreen forest is a forest made up of evergreen trees. They occur across a wide range of climatic zones, and include trees such as conifers and holly in cold climates, eucalyptus, live oak, acacias, magnolia, and banksia in more temperate zo ...

. It favors the interior of '' várzea'' where tree falls create openings, but also occurs in

transitional forest Forest transition refers to a geographic theory describing a reversal or turnaround in land-use trends for a given territory from a period of net forest area loss (i.e., deforestation) to a period of net forest area gain. The term "landscape tur ...

and along small watercourses and

oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or stream pool, pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is meander cutoff, cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. The word "oxbow" can also refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether ...

s. In elevation it reaches in Colombia and in Ecuador. It Peru it mostly occurs below but locally is found as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The plumbeous antbird is believed to be a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The plumbeous antbird's diet has not been detailed but is known to include insects, other

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, and snails. It forages as individuals, pairs, and small family groups and mostly within about of the ground and usually not with

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. They hop along the ground and among low branches, and take prey mostly by picking from leaf litter and by reaching to leaves and twigs from the ground or a low perch. They occasionally attend

army ant The name army ant (or legionary ant or ''marabunta'') is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limited ...

swarms to capture prey disturbed by the ants.

Breeding

The plumbeous antbird's breeding season appears to vary geographically. In Ecuador it could span as much as from April to December; in Peru it includes March and October and in Brazil August. Its nest was first described in 2003 based on two nests found in

Manú National Park Manu National Park () is a national park and biosphere reserve located in the regions of Madre de Dios and Cusco in Peru. It protects a diverse number of ecosystems including lowland rainforests, cloud forests and Andean grasslands. History M ...

, Peru. The open cup-shaped nests were suspended and above the ground. They were constructed of black

rhizomorphs Mycelial cords are linear aggregations of parallel-oriented hyphae. The mature cords are composed of wide, empty vessel hyphae surrounded by narrower sheathing hyphae. Cords may look similar to plant roots, and also frequently have similar functi ...

and covered in dry leaves attached with spider silk. Each nest contained two eggs. These had a pinkish white background which was almost completely covered with dark purplish-red streaks. The first nest measured and the second . A nest in Brazil was similarly woven of blackish brown rootlets and hung about above the ground in spiny palms. The incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.

Vocalization

The plumbeous antbird's song is "a long...rattling trill that accelerates throughout, and gains and then declines in intensity". It has been written as "wo-wu-wu-wu-wu-wu-wu-wrrrrrrrrrr" and "''wur-wur-wurwrwrwe'e'e'e'e'ip''". Its calls include "wo-púr" or "klo-kú" and "a fast chattering 'chrr-trr-trr-trr-trr-trr-trr' ".

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 plumbeous antbird as being of Least Concern. It has a large range; its population size is not known and is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered fairly common to common in most of its range. Its range includes several large protected areas both public and private, and "also encompasses extensive areas of intact habitat which, although not formally protected, are at little risk of being developed in the near future".

References

plumbeous antbird Birds of the Amazon rainforest Birds of the Colombian Amazon Birds of Peruvian Amazonia Birds of the Ecuadorian Amazon Birds of the Bolivian Amazon plumbeous antbird plumbeous antbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot