The hoary-throated spinetail (''Synallaxis kollari'') is a Critically Endangered

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 lightweig ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Furnariidae. It is found in

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 Guyana.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, G. Del-Rio, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 26 November 2023. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved November 27, 2023

Taxonomy and systematics

The hoary-throated spinetail was originally described in genus ''Synallaxis''. In the early twentieth century some authors moved it into the newly created genus ''Poecilurus''. By 2000 the merger of ''Poecilurus'' into ''Synallaxis'' was generally accepted and a study published in 2011 confirmed that placement. That study also established that the hoary-throated spinetail is a

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to the

white-whiskered spinetail The white-whiskered spinetail (''Synallaxis candei'') is a species of bird in the family Furnariidae. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland ...

(''S. candei'') and the rufous-breasted spinetail (''S. erythrothorax'').Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, G. Del-Rio, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 26 November 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved November 27, 2023Derryberry, 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 The hoary-throated spinetail is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

Description

The hoary-throated spinetail is long. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have grayish lores, dark rufous cinnamon ear

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are s ...

, and a rufous streak behind the eye. Their crown is gray-brown and their nape, back, rump, and uppertail

bright rufous. Their wings are rufous with dusky tips on their flight feathers. Their tail is rufous. Their throat is dull black with white tips on the feathers. Their underparts are mostly rufous cinnamon with pale ochraceous lower flanks and buffy or pale cinnamon-white in the center of their belly. Their iris is dark reddish brown, their

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. T ...

blackish gray, their

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

blue-gray with a blackish tip, and their legs and feet blue-gray.Vale, M. M. (2020). Hoary-throated Spinetail (''Synallaxis kollari''), 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.hotspi1.01 retrieved December 7, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The hoary-throated spinetail has a very restricted range in the extreme northern Amazon Basin. It is found only along several tributaries of the Branco River in the Brazilian state of Roraima and Guyana's

Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Upper Takutu-Upper Esequibo (Region 9) is a region of Guyana. Venezuela claims the territory as part of Bolívar (state) in Esequiban Guyana. It borders the region of Potaro-Siparuni to the north, the region of East Berbice-Corentyne to the ea ...

Region. It inhabits

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

along the watercourses, which flow through grasslands called "Lavrado" in Brazil and the

Rupununi savannah The Rupununi savannah is a savanna plain in Guyana, in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region. It is part of the Guianan savanna ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. Description The Rupununi Sava ...

in Guyana. The total length of the narrow bands it inhabits is less than . It favors dense undergrowth heavy with vines and ''

Inga ''Inga'' is a genus of small tropical, tough-leaved, nitrogen-fixing treesElkan, Daniel. "Slash-and-burn farming has become a major threat to the world's rainforest" ''The Guardian'' 21 April 2004 and shrubs, subfamily Mimosoideae. ''Inga''s ...

'' shrubs.

Behavior

Movement

The hoary-throated spinetail is a year-round resident.

Feeding

Nothing is known about the hoary-throated spinetail's diet or foraging behavior, though it is assumed to feed on

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

s like other ''Synallaxis'' spinetails.

Breeding

Nothing is known about the hoary-throated spinetail's breeding biology. It is assumed to build a stick nest similar to those of other ''Synallaxis'' spinetails.

Vocalization

The hoary-throated spinetail makes a "double-noted 'tuh-tih', the second note higher". It is not known if this is a song or a call.

Status

The IUCN originally in 1988 assessed the hoary-throated spinetail as Near Threatened, then in 1994 as Vulnerable, in 2000 as Endangered, in 2005 again as Vulnerable, in 2008 again as Endangered, and since 2012 as Critically Endangered. It has a very small range and an estimated population of 1500 to 7000 mature individuals that is believed to be decreasing. "The gallery forests within the species icrange are being rapidly converted into rice plantations nd rning of vegetation, such as the fires that spread through Roraima in 1999, may be another major threat." "Forest loss across the species's icrange is likely to become extremely rapid." "About 60% of the gallery forest within the species’ range is inside indigenous reserves" which are not formally protected, and rice is illegally farmed in them by non-indigenous people.

References

External links

BirdLife International Species Factsheet
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1272917 hoary-throated spinetail hoary-throated spinetail Birds of the Guiana Shield hoary-throated spinetail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot