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Mouse-colored Antshrike | Thamnophilus murinus
Grijze mierklauwier | Batará murino | Choca-murina
The Mouse-colored Antshrike is a small, greyish-brown Thamnophilus of northern Amazonian forest, where it lives mainly in forest on poor white-sand soils. It closely resembles Plain-winged Antshrike but has a dark eye and small pale spots on the wings. In the guide area it occurs in south-eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador and northern Peru.
Voice
A short, accelerating series of nasal notes ending in an emphatic final note, roughly uh-uh-uh-uhuhuh-wánk. Also single, nasal calls.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14 cm, with a hooked bill and a greyish-brown eye. The male is grey, slightly browner on the wings and tail, with small white tips to the wing coverts and pale tips to the tail feathers. The female is brown to rufous-brown above, with a more rufous crown, small buff tips to the wing coverts and greyish-buff underparts.
Confusion species
Plain-winged Antshrike Thamnophilus schistaceus has a red eye and wings without pale spots, and the male is purer slate-grey. Northern Slaty Antshrike Thamnophilus punctatus has larger white wing spots and a blacker crown. Cinereous Antshrike Thamnomanes caesius perches upright and has plain wings. Plain Antvireo Dysithamnus mentalis is smaller, with a shorter tail and a dark ear patch.
Habitat
Understorey and mid-storey of terra firme forest, especially forest on nutrient-poor white sand (varillal), up to about 1000 m. It forages in pairs, regularly with mixed flocks, searching leaves and twigs for arthropods. The nest is an open cup hung in a branch fork.
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 east and south-east (including Guainía, Vaupés, Amazonas, Caquetá and Putumayo). Ecuador: in the eastern lowlands. Peru: in the north, mainly north of the Amazon and the Marañón in Loreto, locally also south of them. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search varillal forest on white sand near Iquitos, for example at Allpahuayo-Mishana, where it moves with mid-storey mixed flocks.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Fairly common in suitable forest; deforestation is the main threat.
Scientific name
Thamnophilus murinus | Sclater & Salvin, 1868
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1868 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Thamnophilus was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek thamnos, 'bush', and philos, 'loving': bush-lover. The species name comes from Latin murinus, 'mouse-coloured'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Manaus, Brazil.