Dugand's Antwren (Herpsilochmus dugandi) — Vorstman's Guide to the Birds of the Andes and West Coast

Voice

The song is a series of short notes that accelerates into a fast, dry trill. Calls are short, nasal notes.

Listen: SongXC296565

Recording: Ross Gallardy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto

Identification

11 cm, with a fairly short tail. The male has a black crown, a white supercilium and a black eyestripe. The back is grey with black; the wings are black with white wingbars. The tail is black with white spots and tips. The underparts are pale grey to whitish. The female has a rufous crown and buff-tinged underparts.

Confusion species

Ancient Antwren Herpsilochmus gentryi has yellowish-tinged underparts and lives in forest on poor sandy soils. Rusty-winged Antwren Herpsilochmus frater has rufous edges to the flight feathers. Pygmy Antwren Myrmotherula brachyura is smaller, with a streaked back, a yellow belly and a shorter tail.

Habitat

Canopy of humid lowland terra firme rainforest, locally also in tall riverine forest and in the foothills. It searches in pairs for insects in foliage high in the trees, usually with mixed flocks. The nest is an open cup in a horizontal fork of a branch.

Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.

Range and movements

Colombia: in the southeast, from Meta and Guaviare to Caquetá, Putumayo and Amazonas. Ecuador: in the eastern lowlands. Peru: in the northeast (Loreto), north of the Amazon and Marañón. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Hardly occurs, if at all, outside the guide area.

Resident
dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Density map from the occurrence records of GBIF (2006-10-01 – 2026-09-30), counted per 1.41° grid cell and per month and divided by all bird records in that same cell — so the number of birdwatchers does not shape the picture. Colour depth follows that share and fades out gradually, so the map does not follow national borders. Country outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).

How and when to look

Search from canopy towers or viewpoints above the forest in eastern Ecuador, for example along the Napo, and listen for the accelerating trill from the treetops.

Conservation status

Least Concern. Fairly common in extensive lowland forest; sensitive to large-scale deforestation.

Scientific name

Herpsilochmus dugandi | Meyer de Schauensee, 1945

Meyer de Schauensee described the species in 1945 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Herpsilochmus was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Greek herpō, 'to creep about', and lokhmē, 'thicket, copse'. The species name honours the Colombian naturalist Armando Dugand. The specimen the first description was based on came from Belén de los Andaquíes, Caquetá, Colombia.