The puna miner (''Geositta punensis'') is a

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

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 subfamily Sclerurinae, the leaftossers and miners, 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

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

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 ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, 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, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. 28 March 2023. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved April 15, 2023

Taxonomy and systematics

The puna miner 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 puna miner is a medium-size member of its genus. It is long and weighs . The sexes are alike. It has a pale grayish brown face with a buffy whitish supercilium. It is pale sandy brown from its crown to its rump; its uppertail coverts are even paler. Its tail feathers have pale tawny rufous bases, dark brownish to blackish middles, and pale tawny rufous tips. The pale basal area is progressively larger from the innermost to the outer feathers and the outermost have almost entirely white outer webs. Its wing coverts and flight feathers are dark brownish with whitish buff tips; the flight feathers also have pale tawny rufous bases that show as a band in flight. Its throat, breast, and belly are pale buff-white with a pale tawny tinge on the flanks. Its iris is brown, its medium-length bill is blackish with a blue-gray base to the

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 ...

, and its legs and feet are dark gray.Remsen, Jr., J. V. and A. Bonan (2020). Puna Miner (''Geositta punensis''), 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.punmin1.01 retrieved May 2, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The puna miner is a bird of the

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish language, Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechuan languages, Quechua and Aymara language, Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla people, Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extens ...

, a high elevation plateau in the Andes of far southern Peru, western Bolivia, northeastern Chile, and northwestern Argentina. There it inhabits puna grasslands and barren areas; it sometimes occurs on open slopes above brushy ravines. In elevation it mostly ranges between but is found as low as and as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The puna miner is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The puna miner forages singly or in pairs. It gleans food from the ground and small shrubs while hopping, not walking. Its diet is mostly

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 seeds.

Breeding

The puna miner breeds in the austral summer, generally between October and January. It is thought to be monogamous. It nests in a burrow, usually one made in dry sandy soil by a tuco-tuco (''Ctenomys''), a small rodent. The clutch size is two or three eggs.

Vocalization

The puna miner often sings during a display flight, "a long shrill series of 'veoo' notes, rising early and then descending". The song has some "faster, chattier notes" mixed in. Its flight call is "a sharp, rich 'pzea' or 'kvee'."

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 puna miner as being of Least Concern. It has a large range, and though its population size is not known it is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered uncommon to locally fairly common. It " -exists with humans on heavily grazed Altiplano, and presumably has done so for thousands of years."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1265978 Geositta Birds of the Puna grassland Birds described in 1917 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot