The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner (''Automolus ochrolaemus'') is a species of bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Panama and every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Taxonomy and systematics

The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner's taxonomy is unsettled. Until July 2023 the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) called ''A. ochrolaemus'' the buff-throated foliage gleaner and assigned it these six subspecies: *''A. o. cervinigularis'' ( Sclater, PL, 1857) *''A. o. hypophaeus'' Ridgway, 1909 *''A. o. pallidigularis'' Lawrence, 1862 *''A. o. turdinus'' ( von Pelzeln, 1859) *''A. o. ochrolaemus'' (

Tschudi Tschudi (variants: Schudy, Shoudy, Shudi, Schudi, Tschudy) is a surname common in the Canton of Glarus, Switzerland. History The Tschudi name can be traced back to 870. After Glarus joined the Swiss Confederation in 1352, various members of the fa ...

, 1844) *''A. o. auricularis'' Zimmer, JT, 1935 The Clements taxonomy added a seventh, ''A. o. amusos'' ( Peters, 1929).Clements, J. F., P.C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved October 28, 2023

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

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Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...

'' does not recognize ''A. o. amusos'' but includes ''A. o. exsertus'' as the seventh subspecies.HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: https://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022 The IOC, Clements, and the American Ornithological Society previously recognized ''exsertus'' as a separate species, the Chiriqui foliage-gleaner.Chesser, R. T., S. M. Billerman, K. J. Burns, C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, B. E. Hern ndez-Ba os, R. A. Jim nez, A. W. Kratter, N. A. Mason, P. C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., and K. Winker. 2023. Check-list of North American Birds (online). American Ornithological Society. https://checklist.americanornithology.org/taxa/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 28 September 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved October 20, 2023 In July 2023 the IOC split ''A. o. cervinigularis'' and ''A. o. hypophaeus'' from the buff-throated to form the new species fawn-throated foliage-gleaner, which by the

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''A. cervinigularis''. The IOC renamed the remaining four subspecies the ochre-throated foliage-gleaner to avoid confusion with the former, larger, buff-throated species. It retains the former binomial ''A. ochrolaemus''. In October 2023 the Clements taxonomy accepted the same split and deleted ''A. o. amusos'' entirely. The other systems retain their own versions of the previous seven-subspecies buff-throated foliage-gleaner This article follows the four-subspecies model.

Description

The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner is long and weighs . It is a fairly large member of its genus and has a shortish and heavy bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the

nominate subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

''A. o. ochrolaemus'' have a mostly dark brownish face with a bold buff eyering and stripe behind the eye, faint reddish streaks on the ear coverts, and an ochraceous-buff malar area with faint dark flecks. Their crown and nape are dark brown with a faint blackish brown scallop pattern. Their back and rump are rich dark brown that blends to dark chestnut uppertail coverts. Their wing coverts are rich dark brown and their flight feathers slightly paler and more rufescent. Their tail is dark chestnut. Their throat is deep buff, their breast is streaked with medium brown and ochraceous buff, and their belly is brown. Their flanks are a darker and more rufescent brown and their undertail coverts dull chestnut. Their iris is brown to dark brown, their maxilla blackish horn, gray, or horn brown, their mandible greenish buff to gray, and their legs and feet olive, greenish brown, or greenish gray. Juveniles are slightly duller than adults, with a less obvious eyering, a rufous tinge to the face, a chestnut tinge to the crown, and slightly mottled throat and breast.Remsen, Jr., J. V. and H. F. Greeney (2020). Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner (''Automolus ochrolaemus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.btfgle1.01 retrieved September 6, 2023 The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner subspecies ''A. o. pallidigularis'' is the palest and dullest, with a nearly white throat and dull brown underparts that have no ochraceous tinge. ''A. o. auricularis'' is larger and duller than the nominate. Its back is more grayish olive and its underparts paler with less streaking. ''A. o. turdinus'' has a paler throat and slightly less ochraceous underparts than the nominate. Its underparts are intermediate in tone and markings between the nominate and ''auricularis''.

Distribution and habitat

The subspecies of the ochre-throated foliage-gleaner are found thus: *''A. o. pallidigularis'': eastern Panama, northern and western Colombia, and northwestern Ecuador *''A. o. turdinus'': from southeastern Colombia east through southern Venezuela and the Guianas to the Atlantic and south through eastern Ecuador into northeastern Peru and northwestern Brazil north of the Amazon *''A. o. ochrolaemus'': south of the Amazon in eastern Peru, western Brazil, and central Bolivia *''A. o. auricularis'': central Brazil south of the Amazon between the

Rio Purus The Purus River (Portuguese: ''Rio Purus''; Spanish: ''Río Purús'') is a tributary of the Amazon River in South America. Its drainage basin is , and the mean annual discharge is . The river shares its name with the Alto Purús National Park and ...

and Pará state and south into northeastern Bolivia The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner inhabits a variety of forested landscapes across its very large range. In Panama it occurs in lowland rainforest 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. ...

up to an elevation of about . In most of the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

it occurs in transitional forest, seasonally flooded '' várzea'' forest, and swamp forest between sea level and about . West of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador it typically occurs in

up to about . Locally along the Andes it reaches .

Behavior

Movement

The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner feeds mostly on a variety of insects, spiders, and vertebrates like small frogs. It forages singly or in pairs and often (perhaps usually) joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It forages from the forest's undergrowth to its mid-storey, acrobatically gleaning and pulling prey from

epiphyte An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

s, debris, and especially from clumps of dead leaves as it hops along branches and vines. In Central America it has also been observed foraging on the ground by flipping aside leaf litter.

Breeding

The only information on the ochre-throated foliage-gleaner's breeding biology comes from a 1929 description of a nest in Panama. It was a shallow but bulky cup of leaf stems in a chamber at the end of a tunnel excavated in an earthen stream bank.Van Tyne, J. (1926). The nest of ''Automolus ochrolaemus pallidigularis'' Lawrence. Auk 43:546.

Vocalization

The ochre-throated foliage-gleaner's song appears similar among its subspecies. It sings mostly at dawn and dusk. In Brazil it is a "series of 3-4 well-separated, descending 'keh-keh-keh-kreh' notes". In Ecuador it is "a short descending series of well-enunciated notes, e.g. 'kee-kee-ke-krr' or 'ki, ki, ki-ki-ke-ke-krr' ". Other descriptions from South America include "kee-kee-krr-krr", "jee, jee, ju-ju-ja", and "ki, ki, ke-ke-kukukrrr". Its calls include a "nasal 'rack' " and a "downslurred, dry 'krèeh' ".

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 ...

follows

's taxonomy and so has assessed the pre-split "buff-throated" foliage gleaner as a whole. It is rated as being of Least Concern. It has an extremely large range, but its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered common to fairly common.