The Planalto tapaculo (''Scytalopus pachecoi'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

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 family Rhinocryptidae. It is found in southeastern

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 extreme northeastern

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The Planalto tapaculos was previously included in the mouse-colored tapaculo (''Scytalopus speluncae'') but was described as a new species in 2005 based on differences in

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

and vocalizations. Its specific epithet honors Fernando Pacheco, a Brazilian ornithologist.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 19 January 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 19, 2021Fjeldså, J. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Planalto Tapaculo (''Scytalopus pachecoi''), 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.platap1.01 retrieved April 27, 2021

Description

The Planalto tapaculo is about long and weighs about . The male's upperparts are mainly dark gray and the underparts paler gray. The flanks are buff with dark bars, which differentiate it from the similar but unbarred mouse-colored tapaculo. The female is browner and the juvenile has not been described.

Distribution and habitat

The Planalto tapaculo is known from southern

(several parts of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

and southeastern Santa Catarina) and extreme northeast

Misiones Province Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes ...

. It inhabits

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

and forest edge where it is often found near streams and in undergrowth such as

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

thickets. It has been found at higher densities in secondary forest than in undisturbed forest. It ranges up to elevation.

Behavior

Feeding

The Planalto tapaculo forages for

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 in the forest understory, primarily in thickets of terrestrial

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...

s and bamboo.

Breeding

Almost nothing is known about the Planalto tapaculo's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality, seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as environmental factor, habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples includ ...

. A nest found in September in Argentina was not described but contained two eggs.

Vocalization

The Planalto tapaculo's song contains a long series of notes starting at a rate of two or three per second and accelerating into a tril

This compares to five notes per second in the faster song of the mouse-colored tapaculo. The Planalto tapaculo has a distinctive, monosyllabic contact call and a loud alarm call.

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 Planalto tapaculo as being of Least Concern. Though it has a fairly small and scattered distribution, it occurs in several protected areas and reaches its highest density in second growth and disturbed forest.

References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1275555 Planalto tapaculo Birds of the South Region Birds of the Selva Misionera Planalto tapaculo