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Tacarcuna Tapaculo | Scytalopus panamensis
Panamese tapaculo | Tapaculo de Tacarcuna | Macuquinho-de-tacarcuna
The Tacarcuna Tapaculo is a dark grey tapaculo with a pale eyebrow, found only on a few isolated peaks in the Serranía del Darién on the border of Panama and Colombia. In the guide area it is known only from the Colombian side of those peaks. It is one of the least known species of the guide area.
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Voice
The song is a series of rapidly repeated, short notes from dense undergrowth. Few recordings exist; little is known about its variation.
Recording: Jorge Enrique Avendaño — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11 cm, round, with a short tail, short wings and fairly long legs. The male is dark grey, with a pale grey to whitish eyebrow, a brown rump and brown rear flanks barred dark. The female is washed browner. Juveniles are brown with dark bars.
Confusion species
Choco Tapaculo Scytalopus chocoensis lives lower in the same mountains, lacks the pale eyebrow and sings differently. No other tapaculos occur in the Serranía del Darién; outside the guide area it resembles Silvery-fronted Tapaculo Scytalopus argentifrons of western Panama and Costa Rica.
Habitat
Understory of cloud forest and humid montane forest on the upper slopes and summits of the Serranía del Darién, roughly between 1000 and 1500 m. It forages on or just above the ground for small arthropods. Nothing is known about its breeding.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia only in the extreme north-west, on the Colombian side of Cerro Tacarcuna and Cerro Malí in Chocó; there are almost no recent records from that side. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area on the same peaks on the Panamanian side, in Darién.
How and when to look
The peaks of the Serranía del Darién can only be reached on foot on an expedition, and the border area is often closed to visitors. Almost all records come from the Panamanian side.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The range is very small and restricted to a few peaks. The forest is largely intact, but its small extent makes the species vulnerable to change.
Scientific name
Scytalopus panamensis | Chapman, 1915
Chapman described the species in 1915 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Scytalopus was introduced in 1837 by Gould. The genus name combines Greek skutalē or skutalon, 'stick', with pous, 'foot'. The species name panamensis refers to Panama; this is not necessarily the type locality. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Tacarcuna, Panama.