From Opus

Photo by Ornitho26
Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Campylorhynchus rufinucha

Includes: Sclater's Wren; Rufous-backed Wren

[edit] Identification

17cm. Black crown and eyestripe, white supercilium, rufous nape, and cinnamon-brown upperparts streaked with black and white. The wings and tail are barred with black and greyish-white. The underparts are white. Young birds have duller upperparts and buff underparts.

[edit] Distribution

Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

[edit] Taxonomy

This species has in the past been treated as three species and a new paper is proposing to use that treatment again. These are here treated as groups:

• C.r. rufinucha is an isolated population on the plains of east-central Veracruz, Mexico. This is medium in size. The resulting species would be monotypic.
• C.r. humilis is a small form found along the Pacific coast of Mexico south to about Laguna La Joya in the western Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The resulting species would be monotypic. (Sclater's Wren)
• C.r. capistratus is a large form found along the Pacific coast from Laguna La Joya to northern Costa Rica. This form would include existing subspecies C.r. nigricaudatus, xerophilum, nicaraguae, and castaneus. (Rufous-backed Wren)

Near Laguna la Joya is a population of medium size that probably originated as a hybrid population when the large and the small forms came into secondary contact. The paper referred to above argue that this is a narrow, stable zone of contact.

[edit] Habitat

Forest or open woodland, scrub, second growth and savanna.

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Breeding

It builds a spherical nest with a side entrance and lined with seed down in thorny trees or shrub. The female alone incubates the 3-5 brown- or black-spotted white eggs for about 2 weeks until hatching. The young fledge after a further 2 weeks.

[edit] Diet

The diet includes insects, spiders and other invertebrates.

[edit] References

1. Abstract of a new paper evaluating the taxonomy of Rufous-naped Wren.

[edit] External Links