The freckle-breasted thornbird (''Phacellodomus striaticollis'') 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 Furnariidae. It is found in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

subtropical or tropical dry shrubland Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The biome is dominated by grass and/or shrubs located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and t ...

, and subtropical or tropical moist

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

. It was first described by

Alcide d'Orbigny Alcide Charles Victor Marie Dessalines d'Orbigny (6 September 1802 – 30 June 1857) was a French naturalist who made major contributions in many areas, including zoology (including malacology), palaeontology, geology, archaeology and anthrop ...

and

Frédéric de Lafresnaye Baron Nöel Frédéric Armand André de Lafresnaye (24 July 1783 – 14 July 1861) was a French ornithologist and collector. Lafresnaye was born into an aristocratic family at Chateau de La Fresnaye in Falaise, Calvados, Falaise, Normandy. He ...

in 1838, from Uruguay.

Description

The adult freckle-breasted thornbird is about in length and the sexes are similar. The upper parts are brown, apart from the forehead, crown, wings and tail which are chestnut, the wing feathers being tipped with black. The lores and the underparts are whitish, the throat being buff, freckled with whiter spots, and the borders of the breast and the flanks being flushed with reddish-brown. The irises are pale yellow and the beak and the legs are horn-coloured. The song consists of a series of eight or ten notes, the first few being soft, moderately high-pitched and nasal, and the remainder being higher-pitched, clear and loud. It can be confused with the greater thornbird (''Phacellodomus ruber''), but that species is larger and more rufous.

Distribution and habitat

This species is native to South America where it occurs in southern Paraguay, southeastern Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and northeastern Argentina, at altitudes up to about . It never seems to venture far from water and occurs in the undergrowth of wood edges and riverine corridors, in thickets and in scrubby marshland.

Ecology

The freckle-breasted thornbird is similar to the greater thornbird in habits. Usually seen in pairs, it forages in the undergrowth and in more open marshy habitats for insects including

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

s and

scale insect Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the ...

s. The nest is a bulky, gourd-shaped structure with a long, curved entrance tunnel, built on a branch or in a tree fork. Eggs are laid between August and January, and it is possible that there are two broods.

Status

''Phacellodomus striaticollis'' is a fairly common species with a wide range. No particular threats have been recognised and the population is thought to be stable, so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature 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 rated the bird's conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1264806 freckle-breasted thornbird Birds of Argentina Birds of the Pampas Birds of the South Region Birds of Uruguay freckle-breasted thornbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot