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Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin | Neopelma pallescens
Witbuiktiranmanakin | Saltarín ventriblanco | Fruxu-do-cerradão
The Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin is an inconspicuous olive manakin of dry forest and gallery forest in the cerrado of Brazil. In the guide area it occurs only in north-eastern Bolivia. In structure and behaviour it resembles a small elaenia or flycatcher more than a typical manakin.
Voice
The song is a hoarse, buzzy, slightly rising phrase, repeated at long intervals from a hidden perch in the middle storey. Also short, dry calls.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, with a fairly long tail and a small bill. The upperparts are olive-green to olive-grey. A narrow, largely concealed yellow stripe runs along the centre of the crown. The throat and breast are pale grey with some olive wash, and the belly is white to very pale yellow. The iris is pale grey. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Sulphur-bellied Tyrant-Manakin Neopelma sulphureiventer has a clearly sulphur-yellow belly and lives in more humid forest further west and north. Greenish Elaenia Myiopagis viridicata and Grey-headed Elaenia Myiopagis caniceps have a dark iris, a different posture and often pale wing bars. Dwarf Tyrant-Manakin Tyranneutes stolzmanni is much smaller and has a very short tail.
Habitat
Dry and semi-humid deciduous forest, gallery forest along streams, forest edges and older secondary forest, in the lowlands and on low plateaus. It lives in the lower and middle storeys and eats mainly small fruits, supplemented by insects. The nest is a small cup in the fork of a low branch.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in north-eastern Bolivia, in eastern Beni and northern and eastern Santa Cruz. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area widespread in central and eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In gallery forest and dry forest in eastern Santa Cruz, for example around Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. Listen for the hoarse song and patiently scan the middle storey for a motionless olive bird.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range; locally habitat is lost through conversion of forest to fields and pasture.
Scientific name
Neopelma pallescens | (de Lafresnaye, 1853)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1853 as Tyrannula pallescens; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Neopelma was introduced in 1861 by Sclater. The genus name comes from Greek neos, 'new, different', and pelma, 'sole of the foot'. The species name is Latin pallescens, 'turning pale, palish', after the pale belly. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bahia, Brazil.