The rufous-tailed antthrush or Brazilian antthrush (''Chamaeza ruficauda'') 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

Formicariidae Formicariidae is a family of smallish suboscine passerine birds of subtropical and tropical Central and South America known as antthrushes. They are between in length, and are most closely related to the ovenbirds in the family Furnariidae, an ...

. 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 ...

and

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 rufous-tailed antthrush was formerly treated as

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

with Schwartz's antthrush (''C. turdina'').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 27 July 2024. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 28, 2024 In addition, what is now the cryptic antthrush (''C. meruloides'') was long confused with the rufous-tailed and the short-tailed antthrush (''C. campanisona''); their geographic ranges overlap though they generally are found at different elevations. Their differences were not fully recognized until 1992.Willis, E.O. (1992). ''Three Chamaeza Antthrushes in eastern Brazil (Formicariidae).'' Condor 94: 110-116 In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries several authors and taxonomic systems called ''Chamaeza ruficauda'' the Brazilian Antthrush. The rufous-tailed antthrush 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 rufous-tailed antthrush is long and weighs about . The sexes are alike. Adults have a rufescent brown crown. They have white lores, a white streak behind their eye, and a whitish streak on the side of their neck. Their upperparts and wings are mostly rufescent brown with a less rufescent 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 ...

. Their tail is entirely rufescent brown. Their throat is white with small blackish spots that may look like a stripe. Their lower belly is white. The rest of their underparts are mostly buff that is darkest on the breast. They have black streaks on their sides and flanks and their crissum has black bars. Their iris is dark 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 ...

brownish 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 ...

pinkish white with black edges, and their legs and feet brownish gray with a light pink tinge.Krabbe, N. and T. S. Schulenberg (2020). Rufous-tailed Antthrush (''Chamaeza ruficauda''), 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.rutant2.01 retrieved August 28, 2024

Distribution and habitat

The rufous-tailed antthrush is found in southeastern Brazil from eastern

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 ...

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 ...

south as far as northern

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

and west slightly into northeastern Argentina's

Misiones Province Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the Provinces of Argentina, 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia, Argentina, Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil ...

. It inhabits the interior and edges 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 mature

secondary woodland A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused disturbances, such as timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or equivalently disruptive natura ...

s, favoring areas with dense undergrowth. In elevation it ranges between .

Behavior

Movement

The rufous-tailed antthrush is believed to be a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The rufous-tailed antthrush's diet and foraging behavior are not known in detail, though it is known to feed on insects and spiders. It is almost entirely terrestrial. It walks slowly and deliberately on the forest floor, usually alone or in pairs.

Breeding

The rufous-tailed antthrush's breeding season has not been fully defined but includes November and December. One nest was in a tree cavity with a pad of leaves, fungal

rhizomorph 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 ...

s, and grass; it contained two nestlings. The usual clutch size, incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.

Vocalization

The rufous-tailed antthrush's song is short, "a rapid series of hollow notes at even pace (12–15 per second), increasing in volume and pitch (0·8–1·4 kHz), levelling at end". Its call is a short trill written as "wh'h'h'ert". The species sings from a low perch.

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 rufous-tailed antthrush as being of Least Concern. Its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered fairly common to common but scarce at the southern end of its range. It occurs in several protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q859971 rufous-tailed antthrush Birds of the Atlantic Forest rufous-tailed antthrush Taxonomy articles created by Polbot