All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Parodi's Hemispingus
Parodi's Hemispingus | Kleinothraupis parodii
Parodi's hemispingus | Hemispingo de Parodi | Sanhaço-de-parodi
Parodi's Hemispingus is a tanager of bamboo near the treeline, with a small range in the Andes of southern Peru. It was described only in 1974. A black head with a long, bright yellow supercilium and yellow underparts characterize it.
Voice
The song is a fast, high twitter, often given as a duet by a pair. The call is a thin tsit.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
15 cm, with a fairly short, dark bill. Crown and sides of the head black. A long, bright yellow supercilium runs from the bill to the nape. Upperparts, wings and tail olive-green. Underparts bright yellow, the flanks washed olive. Sexes alike. Young birds are duller, with a brownish-black head.
Confusion species
Orange-browed Hemispingus Kleinothraupis calophrys in Puno and Bolivia has an orange-yellow supercilium and warmer yellow-orange underparts. Black-capped Hemispingus Kleinothraupis atropileus is larger and has a whitish supercilium and an ochraceous-yellow throat. Superciliaried Hemispingus Thlypopsis superciliaris has an olive-grey, not black, crown.
Habitat
Dense Chusquea bamboo in elfin forest and upper montane forest near the treeline, also at the edge of Polylepis patches, roughly between 2600 and 3500 m. It forages in pairs or small groups low in the bamboo for insects, sometimes with mixed flocks. Little is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in Peru, in the Andes of Cusco, among others in the Cordillera Vilcabamba and the Cordillera Vilcanota. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Endemic to the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the bamboo near the treeline around Abra Málaga in Cusco; the birds keep low in the bamboo and are often first detected by their twittering.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. Its range is small. Fires, grazing and clearing at the treeline degrade its habitat.
Scientific name
Kleinothraupis parodii | (Weske & Terborgh, 1974)
Weske & Terborgh described the species in 1974 as Hemispingus parodii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Kleinothraupis was introduced in 2016 by Burns, Unitt & Mason. The genus name honours the ornithologist Nedra K. Klein, combined with Greek thraupis, an unidentified small bird mentioned by Aristotle. The species name honours José Parodi Vargas, who gave the describers a base for their expeditions at his Hacienda Luisiana in Peru. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cordillera Vilcabamba, Cuzco, Peru.