Giant Antshrike - BirdForum Opus

Photo by Ian Hardy
Serra dos Orgaes National Park, south east Brazil, November 2010

Batara cinerea

Identification

The Giant Antshrike is spectacularly large with a heavy, very hooked bill and a long tail.
Male has uniform gray undersides, black crown, and black upperparts with white markings.
Female has a mainly chestnut crown with black tips. Upperparts have broad black bands on ochraceous-buff and underparts are dull buff.

Distribution

Female, subspecies argentina
Photo by Jones Stanley Jones
East side of Jujuy, Jujuy Province, Argentina, October 2019

South America: found in Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Three subspecies are recognized^[1]:

• B. c. excubitor:

• Eastern slope of Andes of central Bolivia (western Santa Cruz)

• B. c. argentina:

• Eastern Bolivia to western Paraguay and north-westernArgentina

• B. c. cinerea:

• South-Eastern Brazil (southern Espírito Santo) to extreme north-eastern Argentina (Misiones)

Habitat

In part of range associated with Atlantic Rain Forest, especially near stands of bamboo. Elsewhere in for example cloud forest.

Behaviour

Diet

They forage in thick vegetation searching for large insects and even frogs.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Arthur Grosset
3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved March 2014)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Giant Antshrike. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 19 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Giant_Antshrike

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