All species › Passerines › Ovenbirds and woodcreepers › Short-billed Leaftosser
Short-billed Leaftosser | Sclerurus rufigularis
Kortsnavelbladkrabber | Tirahojas piquicorto | Vira-folha-de-bico-curto
The Short-billed Leaftosser is the smallest leaftosser of the guide area and lives on the floor of Amazonian terra firme forest. Its short bill separates it from the other leaftossers. It stays hidden in the shade of the forest floor and is tied to tall, closed forest.
Voice
The song is a series of three to six high, thin, descending whistles, sometimes followed by a short trill. The call is a short, sharp note.
Recording: Felipe Arantes — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
15–16 cm, with a short, straight bill, a short blackish tail and short legs. The upperparts are olive-brown to dark brown, and the rump is rufous-brown. The throat and upper breast are rusty to ochre and merge gradually into the browner belly, without a sharp border. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller, with dark scaling on the throat and breast.
Confusion species
Dusky Leaftosser Sclerurus obscurior is larger, with a clearly longer bill, and lives mainly along the base of the Andes. Black-tailed Leaftosser Sclerurus caudacutus is larger, with a long bill and a whitish, scaled throat. Grey-throated Leaftosser Sclerurus albigularis has a greyish-white throat and lives higher, in the foothills.
Habitat
Tall humid terra firme forest in the lowlands, often on sandy soils, up to about 500 m. It forages alone or in pairs on the ground for insects and other invertebrates in the leaf litter, flicking leaves aside. The nest is in a chamber at the end of a tunnel in an earth bank, as in the other leaftossers.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Amazonian lowlands of the south-east. In Ecuador very locally in the eastern lowlands. In Peru in the Amazonian lowlands, mainly in the north and south-east. In Bolivia in the lowlands of the north. Absent from the Andes and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In undisturbed terra firme forest, listen in the early morning for the high, descending whistles, especially where the soil is sandy and the leaf litter deep. Approach the sound slowly and look low along the ground.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is large, but the species is tied to closed forest and disappears with deforestation.
Scientific name
Sclerurus rufigularis | Pelzeln, 1868
Pelzeln described the species in 1868 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Sclerurus was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. The genus name combines Greek sklēros, 'stiff', and oura, 'tail'. The species name rufigularis combines Latin rufus, 'rufous', and gula, 'throat'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Borba, Rio Madeira, Brazil.