Chestnut-belted Gnateater - BirdForum Opus

Male
Photo by Anselmo d Affonseca
Amazonas, Brazil, January 2016

Conopophaga aurita

Identification

10·5–13 cm (4-5 in) -- a species with a rounded body and very short tail
Male

Chestnut crown and brown upperparts with black edges to the lower back
Black throat and sides of head
Long white tuft behind the eye can look like a supercilium but may also be held away from the head
Rufous breast band
Whitish belly

Female

Less strongly marked
Black in face and throat replaced by rufous-orange
Greyish white supercilium both in front and behind eye

Similar Species

Black-breasted Gnateater male has more extensive black bib but lacks a chestnut band below the black throat. It is overall less strongly marked. The ranges are not supposed to overlap.
Ash-throated Gnateater which does overlap in range in Peru and possibly Ecuador differs in being a lot more grey (male) or in having buffy tips to wing coverts forming one to several indistinct wing bars (female).

Distribution

Female
Photo by arthurgrosset
Palmara, Amazonas, Brazil, September 2003

South America: found in Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

Taxonomy

Formerly included Black-breasted Gnateater.

Subspecies

There are 4 subspecies^[1]:

C. a. aurita:

Guyana to French Guiana and northern Brazil (Manaus to Amapá)

C. a. inexpectata:

South-eastern Colombia and adjacent north-western Brazil

C. a. occidentalis:

Tropical north-eastern Ecuador and north-eastern Peru (east of River Napo)

C. a. australis:

North-eastern Peru (south to Ucayali) and western Amazonian Brazil

Habitat

Shady interior of moist forests, mostly in lowland but occasionally higher.

Behaviour

The diet includes insects.

References

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.1)_red. Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.1. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
Avibase
Arthur Grosset
Greeney, H. F. and P. F. D. Boesman (2022). Chestnut-belted Gnateater (Conopophaga aurita), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.chbgna1.02

List of references

Recommended Citation

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

External Links

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