The white-bellied antbird (''Myrmeciza longipes''), is a

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 ...

which breeds in the tropical

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

from

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

to northern

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 in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. It is also called Swainson's antcatcher (usually in historical sources) after

William John Swainson William John Swainson FLS, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of ...

, who first described it scientifically. The genus is monotypic.

Taxonomy

The white-bellied antbird was described by the English naturalist

in 1825 and given the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Drymophila longipes''. The genus ''Myrmeciza'' was erected by the English zoologist

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother o ...

in 1841 with the white-bellied antbird as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The genus formerly included more than 20 species. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2013 found that ''

Myrmeciza The white-bellied antbird (''Myrmeciza longipes''), is a passerine bird which breeds in the tropical New World from Panama to northern Brazil and in Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad an ...

'', as then defined, was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

. In the resulting rearrangement to create

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

genera, the species formerly placed in ''Myrmeciza'' were moved to 12 other genera leaving the white-bellied antbird as only the only member of the genus. There are four subspecies: * ''M. l. panamensis'' Ridgway, 1908 – east Panama and north Colombia * ''M. l. longipes'' (Swainson, 1825) – northeast Colombia, north Venezuela and Trinidad * ''M. l. boucardi'' von Berlepsch, 1888 – northcentral Colombia * ''M. l. griseipectus'' von Berlepsch &

Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in Hamburg, Germany on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrator Claudia Bernadine E ...

, 1902 – southeast Colombia, south Venezuela, the Guianas and northeast Brazil

Description

This

antbird The antbirds are a large passerine bird family (biology), family, Thamnophilidae, found across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. There are List of antbirds, more than 230 species, known variously as an ...

, like others in its family, is a forest bird with a preference for undergrowth in dry or moist deciduous habitats. It is a resident breeder which lays two or three eggs in a nest in a tree, both sexes incubating. The white-bellied antbird is typically 15 cm long, and weighs 26 g. It has rufous brown upperparts and whitish underparts shading to cinnamon-buff on the flanks and lower belly. There is a long grey

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

. The pink legs are long and strong, reflecting this bird's terrestrial lifestyle. The male has a black face, throat and upper breast. The female has a darker crown, grey cheek patches and small dark spots on the wings, and lacks the black markings of the male. The northern race ''griseopectus'' has black spots on the wings and grey central underparts in both sexes. The white-bellied antbird is an

insectivore A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...

which feeds on

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22 ...

s and other

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 at or near the ground; it sometimes follows columns of army ants. It may be located by its bright descending ''jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer-jeer'' song, which ends with a few ''chew'' notes.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1272924

white-bellied antbird The white-bellied antbird (''Myrmeciza longipes''), is a passerine bird which breeds in the tropical New World from Panama to northern Brazil and in Trinidad. It is also called Swainson's antcatcher (usually in historical sources) after William ...

Birds of Panama Birds of Colombia Birds of Venezuela Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Birds of the Guianas