The flammulated treehunter (''Thripadectes flammulatus'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. 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 ...

, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Taxonomy and systematics

The flammulated treehunter is a sister species of the

uniform treehunter The uniform treehunter (''Thripadectes ignobilis'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family (biology), family Furnariidae. It is found in Colombia and Ecuador. Taxonomy and systematics The uniform treehunter i ...

(''T. ignobilis'') and

Peruvian treehunter The Peruvian treehunter (''Thripadectes scrutator'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Bolivia and Peru. It is also called the rufous-backed treehunterClements, J. F., T. S. ...

(''T. scrutator'').Derryberry, E. P., S. Claramunt, G. Derryberry, R. T. Chesser, J. Cracraft, A. Aleixo, J. Pérez-Emán, J. V. Remsen, Jr., and R. T. Brumfield. (2011). Lineage diversification and morphological evolution in a large-scale continental radiation: the Neotropical ovenbirds and woodcreepers (Aves: Furnariidae). Evolution 65(10):2973–2986. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01374.x It has two subspecies, the nominate ''T. f. flammulatus'' ( Eyton, 1849) and ''T. f. bricenoi'' ( Berlepsch, 1907).

Description

The flammulated treehunter is long and weighs . It is the largest and most strikingly patterned member of its genus. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a blackish face and crown with sharp tawny-buff streaks that are rather golden on the crown. Their lores are speckled with blackish and golden buff. Their back is browner than the face and crown, with its blackish only along the feather shafts, and it blends to the rich medium brown rump. Their uppertail coverts are dark reddish brown. Their wing coverts are more rufescent than the back and with narrower streaks, their flight feathers dark rufescent brown, and their tail dull chestnut-brown. Their throat, breast, and upper belly are streaked with blackish and golden buff that fade to rich brown on the lower belly and flanks. Their undertail coverts are streaked with dark rufous-brown and blackish. Their iris is brown to dark brown, their bill black, and their legs and feet blackish to gray-brown. Juveniles are less distinctly streaked than adults. Subspecies ''T. f. bricenoi'' is overall paler than the nominate, with wider and blacker streaks on the upperwing coverts, an almost uniform buff throat, olive-brown instead of black streaks on the underparts, and ochraceous undertail coverts.Remsen, Jr., J. V. and E. de Juana (2020). Flammulated Treehunter (''Thripadectes flammulatus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.flatre1.01 retrieved September 5, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The flammulated treehunter has a

disjunct distribution In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

. The nominate subspecies is found in the Andes of southwestern Venezuela, Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, intermittently in all three

Colombian Andes The Andean region, located in central Colombia, is the most populated natural region of Colombia. With many mountains, the Andes contain most of the country's urban centers.Mérida state. The species inhabits montane evergreen forest and temperate forest and favors thickets of ''

Chusquea ''Chusquea'' is a genus of evergreen bamboos in the grass family. Most of them are native to mountain habitats in Latin America, from Mexico to southern Chile and Argentina. They are sometimes referred to as South American mountain bamboos. Unl ...

'' bamboo. In elevation it mostly ranges between but locally occurs as low as in western Colombia. NML-VZ D1447 NML-VZ D1447a Anabates flammulatus

Behavior

Movement

The flammulated treehunter is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The flammulated treehunter feeds on arthropods and is suspected to also eat small vertebrates. It usually forages singly and rarely to occasionally joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It mostly forages in dense undergrowth, where it gleans prey from branches, moss, and debris.

Breeding

The flammulated treehunter's breeding season has not been fully defined but includes at least June to October. It excavates a tunnel in an earthen bank and makes a nest of rootlets, bamboo fibers, and other plant material in a chamber at its end. The two known clutches were each of two eggs. The incubation period and time to fledging are not known. Both parents provision nestlings.

Vocalization

The flammulated treehunter's song is "a series of grating notes that start as a stutter, then accelerates and becomes louder". Its contact call is "an emphatic sharp 'check' ".

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 flammulated treehunter as being of Least Concern. It has a large range and an unknown population size that is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered generally uncommon; it occurs in two protected areas in Ecuador.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1266973

flammulated treehunter The flammulated treehunter (''Thripadectes flammulatus'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family (biology), family Furnariidae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Taxonomy and systematics ...

Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes Birds of the Venezuelan Andes Birds of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot