The scarlet flycatcher or austral vermilion flycatcher (''Pyrocephalus rubinus'') 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 family

Tyrannidae The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) comprise a Family (biology), family of passerine birds which is found virtually throughout North America, North and South America. It is the world's largest family of birds, with more than 400 species, and is ...

, the tyrant flycatchers. 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 ...

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 ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

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 ...

, and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

.Clements, J. F., P.C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, M. Smith, and C. L. Wood. 2024. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2024. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved October 23, 2024

Taxonomy and systematics

The scarlet flycatcher was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French Natural history, naturalist, mathematician, and cosmology, cosmologist. He held the position of ''intendant'' (director) at the ''Jardin du Roi'', now ca ...

in 1779 in his '' Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux''. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - c. 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Although trained as an engineer and draftsman, he began to produce engravings for books and it later became his primary profession. Martinet's year of b ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Univers ...

coined 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 ...

''Muscicapa rubinus'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The type locality was restricted to

Tefé Tefé, known in early accounts as Teffé, is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the state of Amazonas (Brazilian state), Amazonas, northern Brazil. History As early as 1620 the Portuguese Carmelites could already boast of converts amo ...

on the Amazon River by the American ornithologist John T. Zimmer in 1941. The scarlet flycatcher is now placed in the

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 ...

Pyrocephalus ''Pyrocephalus'' is a genus of bird in the tyrant flycatcher family, Tyrannidae. The genus was introduced by the English ornithologist and bird artist John Gould in 1839 in Charles Darwin's ''Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle''. The type s ...

'' that was introduced in 1839 by the English ornithologist and bird artist

John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist who published monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (illustrator), Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, includ ...

. The generic name 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 ...

''purrhos'' meaning "flame-colored" or "red" and ''-kephalos'' meaning "-headed". The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), 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 gramm ...

''rubinus'' is

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

for "ruby-colored". The further taxonomy of the scarlet flycatcher is unsettled. It was long considered to be the

nominate subspecies In biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. ...

of the

vermilion flycatcher The vermilion flycatcher (''Pyrocephalus obscurus'') is a small passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family found throughout South America and southern North America. It is a striking exception among the generally drab Tyrannidae due to its v ...

sensu lato ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...

''. As of early 2025 the North and South American Classification Committees of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

(AOS), the

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

, and

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

's ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

'' (HBW) continue this classification, though HBW calls the species the common vermilion flycatcher.Chesser, R. T., S. M. Billerman, K. J. Burns, C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, B. E. Hernández-Baños, R. A. Jiménez, O. Johnson, A. W. Kratter, N. A. Mason, P. C. Rasmussen, and J. V. Remsen, Jr. 2024. Check-list of North American Birds (online). American Ornithological Society. https://checklist.americanornithology.org/taxa/ retrieved August 22, 2024Remsen, 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 30 March 2025. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved 30 March 2025HBW and BirdLife International (2024). Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 9. Available at: https://datazone.birdlife.org/about-our-science/taxonomy retrieved December 23, 2024 However, a

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2016 suggested that it be treated as a full species. The

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based in L ...

adopted the

split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...

in January 2017. As part of the split the IOC assigned 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 * ...

''Pyrocephalus obscurus'' to the now-reduced vermilion flycatcher. A study published in 2020 offered further support and was later cited by the IOC.Harvey MG, GA Bravo, S Claramunt, AM Cuervo, GE Derryberry, J Battilana, GF Seeholzer, JS McKay, BC O’Meara, BC Faircloth, SV Edwards, J Pérez-Emán, RG Moyle, FH Sheldon, A Aleixo, BT Smith, RT Chesser, LF Silveira, J Cracraft, RT Brumfield, & EP Derryberry. 2020. The evolution of a tropical biodiversity hotspot. Science 370: 1343–1348. The scarlet flycatcher ''Pyrocephalus rubinus'' as defined by the IOC 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 ...

, and this article follows that treatment.

Description

The scarlet flycatcher is about long. and weighs Ellison, K., B. O. Wolf, and S. L. Jones (2021). Vermilion Flycatcher (''Pyrocephalus rubinus''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.verfly.01.1 retrieved April 16, 2025.Adult males have an intense poppy red forehead and crown down to the eye. Their lores and ear

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 dark grayish brown and form a "mask". Their nape, upperparts, and tail are blackish and their rump blackish brown. Their wings are blackish with paler edges on the coverts and

tertials Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...

. The lower part of their face, their throat, and their underparts are a slightly lighter shade of poppy red than the crown, with sometimes an orangey tinge. Adult females have a grayish brown head with grayish lores and an indistinct whitish

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 ...

. Their back and rump are the same grayish brown as the head and the uppertail coverts and tail are a duskier grayish brown. Their wings are mostly a darker grayish brown than the back. Their throat and underparts are dull white with grayish brown streaks throughout and sometimes a pale yellow tinge on the belly. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a brownish black bill, and blackish to brownish black legs and feet.

Distribution and habitat

The scarlet flycatcher is found over the course of the year from southeastern Colombia east across central Brazil and south from there through eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, eastern Bolivia, and southern Brazil into northern Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. (See the Movement section for details.) It inhabits semi-open to open landscapes such as open woodland, the edges of denser woodlands, pastures with scattered trees, and agricultural areas.

Behavior

Movement

The scarlet flycatcher is highly migratory. It is a year-round resident from eastern Bolivia and far northern Argentina east across Paraguay and southern Brazil. It also breeds further south through Uruguay and Argentina to about

Río Negro Province Río Negro (, ''Black River'') is a province of Argentina, located in northern Patagonia. Neighboring provinces are from the south clockwise Chubut, Neuquén, Mendoza, La Pampa and Buenos Aires. To the east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Its cap ...

. In the austral winter it vacates the southern breeding range. From there and from within the year-round range it migrates north into most of Amazonian Brazil and Amazonian Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.

Feeding

The scarlet flycatcher's diet and foraging behavior are not known in detail. It feeds mostly on insects caught in mid-air with sallies from a perch (" hawking") and also from the ground.

Breeding

Nothing is known about the scarlet flycatcher's breeding biology. Almost all of the breeding data from the widespread vermilion flycatcher ''sensu lato'' are from Arizona.

Vocalization

The scarlet flycatcher's song is an "extr. high ''tic-tic-psiieh''" whose last part may be upslurred, and its call is an "extr. high ''psi''".

Status

The IUCN follows HBW taxonomy and so has not assessed the scarlet flycatcher separately from the vermilion flycatcher.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:flycatcher, scarlet

scarlet flycatcher The scarlet flycatcher or austral vermilion flycatcher (''Pyrocephalus rubinus'') is a passerine bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.Cl ...