Black-cheeked Gnateater - BirdForum Opus

Photo © by Jamfaraco
Lagoa do Peri, Florianopolis-SC, Brazil July 2005

Conopophaga melanops

Identification

Male

• Rufous crown
• Black mask
• Brown upperparts
• Rufous wing-coverts
• Grey underparts
• White throat
• Whitish belly

Female

Female
Photo © by Francisco Paludo
Intervales State Park, Brazil, July 2015

• Lacks the mask
• There is a whitish line running from lores to well behind the eye
• Rufous underparts except for white throat and whitish belly

Distribution

Brazil.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

There are 3 subspecies^[1]:

• C. m. nigrifrons:

• Coastal north-eastern Brazil (Paraíba to Alagoas)

• C. m. perspicillata:

• Eastern Brazil (coastal Bahia and (?) adjacent Sergipe)

• C. m. melanops:

• South-eastern Brazil (Espírito Santo to Santa Catarina)

Habitat

Moist lowland Atlantic forest, forest edges and dense vegetation.

Behaviour

subadult melanops
Photo © by pbono
Fazenda Angelim near Ubatuba, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 2003
Click on photo to enlarge

Diet

The diet consists almost entirely of insects, for which they forage on or near the ground

Vocalisation

Recording by Andrew Whitehouse

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. Arthur Grosset
3. BF Member observations
4. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved July 2015)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Black-cheeked Gnateater. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 2 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black-cheeked_Gnateater

External Links

• Arthur Grosset's Birds

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