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Guianan Streaked Antwren | Myrmotherula surinamensis
Guyanamiersluiper | Hormiguerito de Surinam | Choquinha-estriada
The Guianan Streaked Antwren is a small, black-and-white streaked antwren of vegetation along rivers and lakes in north-eastern South America. It was formerly lumped with Amazonian Streaked Antwren and Pacific Antwren as a single species. Within the countries of the guide area it has not been confirmed; its range reaches southern Venezuela, close to the border with Colombia.
Voice
The song is a fast, dry trill of evenly pitched notes. Calls are short, somewhat nasal notes.
Recording: Ricardo Gagliardi — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm, with a short tail and a thin bill. The male is streaked black and white on the head, crown and back, with a narrow white patch between the shoulders, black wings with white tips to the coverts and white underparts streaked black from the throat to the flanks. The female has an orange-brown head with fine black streaks on the crown and nape and ochre, almost unstreaked underparts.
Confusion species
Amazonian Streaked Antwren Myrmotherula multostriata is almost identical in the field and is separated mainly by voice and range; it lives further west and south, including eastern Colombia. Cherrie's Antwren Myrmotherula cherriei has more heavily streaked underparts, also in the female, and lives mainly in white-sand forest and along blackwater rivers. Pygmy Antwren Myrmotherula brachyura has yellow underparts.
Habitat
Forest edges, scrub, vines and low trees along rivers, streams and lakes, also in swamp forest and older secondary growth, mostly below 500 m. It searches in pairs for small arthropods in low and middle vegetation, often over water. The nest is a suspended cup of plant fibres.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Not confirmed in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia or the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern and eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and northern Brazil, north of the Amazon and east of the Rio Negro. Streaked antwrens in eastern Colombia belong, as far as known, to Amazonian Streaked Antwren or Cherrie's Antwren.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the guide area a black-and-white streaked antwren along water is almost always an Amazonian Streaked or Cherrie's Antwren. A bird considered to be a Guianan Streaked Antwren calls for a sound recording.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Common in much of its range in the Guianas and northern Brazil.
Scientific name
Myrmotherula surinamensis | (Gmelin, 1788)
Gmelin described the species in 1788 as Sitta surinamensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myrmotherula was introduced in 1858 by Sclater. The genus name is a diminutive of Myrmothera (Greek murmos, 'ant', and thēras, 'hunter'): little ant-hunter. The species name refers to Suriname. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.