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Rufous-rumped Antwren | Euchrepomis callinota
Grijswangmiersluiper | Hormiguerito lomirrufo | Zidedê-de-sobre-ruivo
The Rufous-rumped Antwren is a small, slender, fairly long-tailed antwren that lives almost entirely in the canopy of humid montane forest. In shape and behaviour it recalls a greenlet or a warbler more than a typical antbird. It occurs on the Andean slopes from Colombia to central Peru.
Voice
A fast, high series of notes that accelerates into a rapid chipper or trill. Calls are high tsi and ti notes.
Recording: Jerome Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, slender, with a thin bill and a fairly long tail. The male has a black crown and nape, a pale grey face with a dark eyeline, an olive-green mantle and a bright rufous lower back and rump. The wing coverts are slate-grey with pale yellow tips forming two wing bars. Throat and breast are pale grey, the belly pale yellow-green. The female has a brownish-olive crown and greyish-olive sides of the head.
Confusion species
Chestnut-shouldered Antwren Euchrepomis humeralis and Ash-winged Antwren Euchrepomis spodioptila live in the Amazonian lowlands, the former with a chestnut bend of the wing, the latter with a rufous back and white wing bars. Yellow-rumped Antwren Euchrepomis sharpei in the Yungas of Peru and Bolivia has a yellow rump. Rufous-margined Antwren Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus has rufous edges to the flight feathers and no coloured rump.
Habitat
Canopy, interior and edges of humid foothill and montane forest, in Colombia between 700 and 2500 m, in Ecuador 900–1800 m and in Peru mostly 1050–2000 m. It gleans arthropods acrobatically from leaves and twigs, usually in pairs and often with mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: on the slopes of all three Andean ranges and in the Serranía del Perijá. Ecuador: on the western slope south to El Oro and on the eastern slope. Peru: on the eastern slope of the Andes, south to Cusco. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and locally in the Guianas.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search canopy mixed flocks in cloud forest and foothill forest, preferably from a road or slope overlooking the treetops. In birds high in the canopy, look for the rufous rump.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Rather scarce in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; vulnerable to clearance of montane forest for agriculture.
Scientific name
Euchrepomis callinota | (Sclater, 1855) (GBIF: Terenura callinota)
Sclater described the species in 1855 as Formicivora callinota; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Euchrepomis was introduced in 2012 by Bravo, Remsen, Whitney & Brumfield. The genus name combines Greek euchrōs, 'ruddy, bright-coloured', and epōmis, 'point of the shoulder'. The species name comes from Greek kalos, 'fair', and nōtos, 'back', for the coloured rump and back. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.