From Opus

Xenops rutilans

Photo by Gary Clark
Kiri Lodge near Orosi, Costa Rica

Identification

Length: 12cm

• Dark brown head
• Whitish supercilium
• Malar stripe
• Brown upperparts, becoming rufous on the tail and rump
• Buff bar on the darker brown wings
• White-streaked olive brown underparts
• Short, upturned bill
  

Sexes are similar

Distribution

From Costa Rica south over Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Peru to Bolivia and northern Argentina. Also on Trinidad.

Taxonomy

Subspecies^[1]

Eleven subspecies are recognized:

• X. r. septentrionalis: Highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama
• X. r. heterurus: Eastern Panama to north-eastern Ecuador and Venezuela; winters to Trinidad
• X. r. incomptus: Eastern Panama (Darién)
• X. r. perijanus: Sierra de Perijá (Colombia/Venezuela border)
• X. r. phelpsi: Santa Marta Mountains (north-eastern Colombia)
• X. r. guayae: Tropical western Ecuador and extreme north-western Peru (Piura)
• X. r. peruvianus: Tropical eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru
• X. r. purusianus: Brazil south of the Amazon (Rio Purús, Madeira and Tapajós)
• X. r. connectens: Eastern Bolivia and north-western Argentina
• X. r. chapadensis: South-western Brazil (Mato Grosso) and northern Bolivia (Río Beni)
• X. r. rutilans: South-eastern Brazil to eastern Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina

Habitat

Wet forests in foothills and mountains between 600-2,200 m altitude.

Behaviour

Diet

The diet includes arthropods, and the larvae of wood-boring beetles. Foraging behavior is typical of furnarids - flies to a low position on a branch or tree trunk, and systematically scoots upwards probing for food.

Breeding

It places a few stems and roots in a hole 1.5-4.5 m high in a tree for its nest. The 2 white eggs are incubated by both sexes.

References

1. Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
2. Wikipedia

• List of references

External Links