The Cordoba cinclodes or Comechingones cinclodes (''Cinclodes comechingonus'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Furnariidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. (Major taxonomic systems spell the species' English name "Cordoba" rather than "Córdoba" so this article does so as well.)Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved November 10, 2022HBW 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, 2022Remsen, 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 31 May 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved May 31, 2023

Taxonomy and systematics

The Cordoba cinclodes was treated by several mid- to later twentieth century authors as a subspecies of what was then the bar-winged cinclodes (''C. fuscus'' ''

sensu lato ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...

'') before it was split into several species. Data available since 2000 have confirmed that it is a species in its own right and not closely related to any of the bar-winged cinclodes' "daughters".Derryberry, E. P., S. Claramunt, G. Derryberry, R. T. Chesser, J. Cracraft, A. Aleixo, J. Pérez-Emán, J. V. Remsen, Jr., and R. T. Brumfield. (2011). Lineage diversification and morphological evolution in a large-scale continental radiation: the Neotropical ovenbirds and woodcreepers (Aves: Furnariidae). Evolution 65(10):2973–2986. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01374.x The Cordoba cinclodes is

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 "unisp ...

Description

The Cordoba cinclodes is about long and weighs . The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a buff-white

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 k ...

and a dark gray-brown band from the lores through the ear

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind t ...

. Their crown and upperparts are gray-brown. Their wings are gray-brown with a wide black-edged rufous band at the base of the flight feathers. (The band is the largest and brightest of all the cinclodes'.) Their tail is dark gray except the outer pair of feathers, which are blackish with pale rufous tips. Their throat and breast are white with dark scallops, their flanks light brown, and their belly and undertail coverts pale buff-white. Their iris is brown, their bill black with a yellow base on the

mandible In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

, and their legs and feet black.Remsen, Jr., J. V. (2020). Cordoba Cinclodes (''Cinclodes comechingonus''), 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.corcin1.01 retrieved September 3, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The Cordoba cinclodes is found in the Comechingónes Mountains of north-central Argentina from Córdoba Province north to Tucumán and

Santiago del Estero Santiago del Estero (, Spanish for ''Saint-James-Upon-The-Lagoon'') is the capital of Santiago del Estero Province in northern Argentina. It has a population of 252,192 inhabitants, () making it the twelfth largest city in the country, with a sur ...

provinces. It inhabits open grassy areas that are often rocky, and it associates with water less than other cinclodes. In elevation it mostly ranges between but has been observed as high as near

Aconcagua Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in both the Western Hemisphere and the ...

Behavior

Movement

The Cordoba cinclodes is a partial migrant. It breeds as far north as

Mendoza Province Mendoza (), officially the Province of Mendoza, is a province of Argentina, in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders San Juan to the north, La Pampa and Neuquén to the south, San Luis to the east, and the r ...

; after the breeding season some move north of there and others move to lower elevations.

Feeding

The Cordoba cinclodes has been documented feeding on a variety of insects, other small invertebrates like snails and molluscs, and seeds. It usually forages in pairs, gleaning its food from the ground, grass, and rocks.

Breeding

The Cordoba cinclodes breeds during the austral spring and summer. It is monogamous and believed to maintain pairs year-round. It nests in a chamber at the end of a tunnel that it excavates in an earth bank or also in a rock crevice. It floors the chamber with grass, hair, and leaves. The clutch size is two eggs. The incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.

Vocalization

The Cordoba cinclodes' song has not been thoroughly studied but it is known to be a somewhat complex trill.

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the Cordoba cinclodes as being of Least Concern. It has a restricted range and an unknown population size that is believed to be decreasing, but none of these meet the criteria for uplisting to Near Threatened. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered common within that limited range and its habitat "is relatively free from human disturbances other than grazing".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q596481 Córdoba cinclodes Endemic birds of Argentina Córdoba cinclodes Taxonomy articles created by Polbot