The black-bellied wren (''Pheugopedius fasciatoventris'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family Troglodytidae. It is found in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

, and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The black-bellied wren has three subspecies, the nominate ''Pheugopedius fasciatoventris fasciatoventris'', ''P. f. melanogaster'', and ''P. f. albigularis''.

Description

Male black-bellied wrens weigh and females . Adults of all three subspecies have a rich chestnut back and tail; the latter has black bars. They have a white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

of varying size above a grayish face and are white on the chin, throat, and breast. All three have a black belly, but that of ''P. f. melanogaster'' is unmarked while those of the other two subspecies have thin white bars.Logue, D. M. (2020). Black-bellied Wren (''Pheugopedius fasciatoventris''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blbwre1.01 retrieved 3 June 2021

Distribution and habitat

''P. f. melanogaster'' is the northernmost subspecies; it is found from the

Gulf of Nicoya The Gulf of Nicoya ( es, Golfo de Nicoya) is an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. It separates the Nicoya Peninsula from the mainland of Costa Rica, and encompasses a marine and coastal landscape of wetlands, rocky islands and cliffs. The first Spanish ...

in western Costa Rica through western Panama to the

Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terri ...

. ''P. f. albigularis'' is found from the Canal Zone into Colombia's

Chocó Department Choco Department is a department of Western Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It ...

. The nominate ''P. f. fasciatoventris'' is found in northwestern and central Colombia east to the foothills of the

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...

and south into the Cauca and Magdalena valleys. The species inhabits the interior and edges of

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...

and

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

and is often associated with streams.

Behavior

Feeding

The black-bellied wren forages mainly in the canopy and sub-canopy of both the forest interior and its edges. It also sometimes forages in the understory and on the ground, but always in dense cover. It preys on small

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s but details are scant.

Breeding

The black-bellied wren nests mostly in forest edges, usually near the ground in vine tangles. The nests are domed with a side entrance and constructed by both sexes of strips of palm and sugar cane leaves and lined with softer plant material. The clutch size is two. It appears that only the female incubates the eggs. The species' nests are heavily predated.

Vocalization

Both sexes of the black-bellied wren have large song repertoires; one male was recorded with 38 different songs and a female with 19. Multiple examples are available at

Xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and Information repository, repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of Bird vocalization, birdsong and bird calls. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound r ...

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and Cornell's

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 33 million photographs, 1.2 million audio recordings, and over two hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ever ...

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Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the black-bellied wren as being of Least Concern. However, its population "is suspected to be in decline owing to ongoing habitat destruction and fragmentation."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4741856 black-bellied wren Birds of Costa Rica Birds of Panama Birds of Colombia black-bellied wren Taxonomy articles created by Polbot