Stiles's tapaculo (''Scytalopus stilesi'') is a member of the

tapaculo The tapaculos or tapacolos are a family, Rhinocryptidae, of small suboscine passerine birds, found mainly in South America and with the highest diversity in the Andean regions. Three species ( Chocó, Tacarcuna, and the silvery-fronted) are ...

s, a group of

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

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 ...

s. It was described as new to science in 2005. It has been found at 21 sites in montane forest between 1,420 and 2,130 m altitude in the northern Cordillera Central of the

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 ...

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 ...

; although having a restricted range, within this limited area it is a common understorey bird. Initially, it seemed as if the species would classify as

near threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...

(Cuervo ''et al.'' 2005), but it turned out to be more plentiful and thus is classified as species 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 ...

in the 2007

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. The species was originally observed in the 1990s, but when

Niels Krabbe Niels Kaare Krabbe (born 1 July 1951) is an ornithologist and bird conservationist for many years based at the Vertebrate Department of the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen and tutored by Jon Fjeldså. His research interests include v ...

examined recordings of their songs, his suspicions arose that they were a new species - Stiles's tapaculo's song is considerably faster and lower-pitched than that of the closely related

Ecuadorian tapaculo The Ecuadorian tapaculo or El Oro tapaculo (''Scytalopus robbinsi'') is a small passerine bird belonging to the genus ''Scytalopus'', a genus of tapaculos. It is restricted to a small area in south-western Ecuador and was not described until 19 ...

''S. robbinsi'' (Cuervo ''et al.'' 2005). The species was named in honour of

Frank Gary Stiles Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Curre ...

, an ornithologist who played a prominent role in research into Neotropical birds in the 1980s and 1990s.

References

*Cuervo, Andrés M.; Cadena, Carlos Daniel; Krabbe, Niels & Renjifo, Luis Miguel (2005): ''Scytalopus stilesi'', a new species of tapaculo (Rhinocryptidae) from the Cordillera Central of Colombia. ''

Auk An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The word "auk" is derived from Icelandic ''álka'', from Old Norse ''alka'' (a ...

'' 122(2): 445–463. nglish with Spanish abstract DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122 445:SSANSO.0.CO;2PDF fulltext
Retrieved on 22 May 2007. Stiles's tapaculo Birds of the Colombian Andes Endemic birds of Colombia Stiles's tapaculo Stiles's tapaculo {{Rhinocryptidae-stub