The sooty ant tanager (''Habia gutturalis'') 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 cardinal

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

( Cardinalidae); formerly, it was placed with the true tanagers in the family Thraupidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

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 ...

. 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 ...

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. ...

. It is becoming rare due to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

Taxonomy

The bird was first formally described in 1854 by the English zoologist Philip Sclater. The binomial name derives from the Guaraní name ''habia'' for various finches and tanagers, and the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''gutturalis'' which means "of the throat". The sooty ant tanager is a

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 "unispec ...

species.

Description

Sooty Ant-Tanager male with crest raised

19-20 cm in length. The adult male is dark grey with a conspicuous scarlet crest (not always raised) and a rosy-red throat. The adult female is duller with a pinkish-white throat.

Distribution and Habitat

This bird is found in northwest Colombia, occurring in the Upper Sínu Valley at the northern end of the western

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

, and east along the north base of the Andes to the middle Magdalena River Valley. Its natural habitat is humid tropical forests, edges, gaps and mature secondary forest. It prefers dense streamside and landslide habitats in extensive unbroken forest.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1302555

sooty ant tanager The sooty ant tanager (''Habia gutturalis'') is a species of bird in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae); formerly, it was placed with the true tanagers in the family Thraupidae. It is endemic to Colombia. Its natural habitats are subtropical o ...

Endemic birds of Colombia

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot