All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Rufous-throated Tanager
Rufous-throated Tanager | Ixothraupis rufigula
Roestkeeltangare | Tangara golirrufa | Saíra-de-garganta-ruiva
The Rufous-throated Tanager is a small tanager of the Pacific slope of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador, with a black head, a rufous throat patch and boldly scaled upperparts. It lives in the canopy of very wet foothill forest and usually travels with mixed flocks of tanagers.
Voice
The call is a high, thin, sharp tsit or tsip, often in short series from flocks. The song is inconspicuous.
Recording: Patricio Mena Valenzuela — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
12 cm. The head is black with a small rufous throat patch. The back and scapulars are black with broad golden-green edges, giving a scaled pattern; the rump is golden green. The wings and tail are black with green edges. The underparts are white to pale ochre-yellow, with black, scaly spots on the breast and flanks that become greenish towards the rear; the belly is whitish to yellowish. The bill is black. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller and less sharply marked.
Confusion species
Speckled Tanager Ixothraupis guttata has a green, black-spotted head with yellow around the eye and no rufous throat. Bay-headed Tanager Tangara gyrola has a uniform reddish-brown head and unspotted green underparts. Beryl-spangled Tanager Tangara nigroviridis occurs higher in the mountains, is spotted blue-green and has a black mask without a rufous throat.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of very wet lowland and foothill forest, also tall secondary growth, mainly from about 300 to 1300 m, locally somewhat higher. It eats small fruits and searches mossy branches for insects, usually in pairs or small groups within mixed flocks of other tanagers. 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
In Colombia along the Pacific slope of the Western Andes, from the north south to the border with Ecuador. In Ecuador in the northwest, on the western slope of the Andes south to about Pichincha and Cotopaxi. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Endemic to the Chocó region; not known outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look in mixed flocks in the canopy along forest edges and roads in the foothills of northwestern Ecuador, for example around Mindo and Milpe, or in western Colombia; flocks sometimes come low at the edge of a clearing.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small and Chocó foothill forest is being cleared on a large scale, causing local declines.
Scientific name
Ixothraupis rufigula | (Bonaparte, 1851)
Bonaparte described the species in 1851 as T[anagrella] Rufigula; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ixothraupis was introduced in 1851 by Bonaparte. The genus name combines Greek ixos, 'mistletoe', with thraupis, an unidentified small bird. The species name comes from Latin rufus, 'rufous', and gula, 'throat'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Calacalí, Pichincha, Ecuador.