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Goeldi's Antbird | Akletos goeldii
Goeldi's miervogel | Hormiguero de Goeldi | Formigueiro-de-goeldi
Goeldi's Antbird is a large antbird of south-western Amazonia, closely related to the White-shouldered Antbird. It lives mainly in Guadua bamboo and dense riverside growth. It is named after the Swiss-Brazilian naturalist Emil Goeldi.
Voice
The song begins with three soft, quick notes, followed by evenly spaced, downslurred whistles. The call is a slow, electric-sounding chatter.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
18 cm, with a red iris and blue-grey bare skin around the eye. The male is mostly black, with a usually hidden white patch between the scapulars. The female has a blackish-grey forecrown, lores and face; the crown, upperparts and wings are rufous-brown and the tail dark rufous-brown; the throat is white and the underparts are pale cinnamon with tawny flanks and undertail coverts.
Confusion species
White-shouldered Antbird Akletos melanoceps lives further north; the male has a white shoulder patch and the female a black head and breast. East Amazonian Fire-Eye Pyriglena leuconota is smaller, longer-tailed and lives higher up, in foothill forest. Sooty Antbird Hafferia fortis lives in terra firme forest; the female is grey-brown without a white throat. White-lined Antbird Myrmoborus lophotes shares the bamboo but is smaller and crested.
Habitat
Floor and understorey of evergreen várzea forest, transitional forest, bamboo forest and secondary forest, especially in shrubbery and vine tangles along rivers and in Guadua bamboo. Mostly below 500 m, locally to about 800 m in Peru. It forages in pairs low in the vegetation for insects. The nest is placed low in the vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Peru: in the south-east, in Ucayali, Madre de Dios and Cusco. Bolivia: in the north-west, in Pando and northern La Paz. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Acre and south-western Amazonas in Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search bamboo and dense riverside growth along rivers in Madre de Dios, for example near Tambopata or along the lower Manu, and listen for the series of downslurred whistles.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Fairly common in a large range; the population is considered stable.
Scientific name
Akletos goeldii | (Snethlage, HMMEE, 1908) (GBIF: Myrmeciza goeldii)
Snethlage, HMMEE described the species in 1908 as Myrmelastes goeldii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Akletos was introduced in 1948 by Dunajewski. The genus name comes from Greek aklētos, 'uncalled, unbidden', from the negative prefix a- and klētos, 'called'. The species name honours Emil August Goeldi (1859–1917), Swiss zoologist and director of the museum in Belém (Brazil), where Snethlage worked. The specimen the first description was based on came from Rio Purus, Amazonas, Brazil.