All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › White-bellied Pygmy Tyrant
White-bellied Pygmy Tyrant | Myiornis albiventris
Witborstdwergtiran | Tirano enano ventriblanco | Caçula-de-barriga-branca
The White-bellied Pygmy Tyrant is one of the smallest passerines in the guide area, with a stubby tail and a large head. It lives in the foothills of the east slope of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia, where it replaces the closely related Short-tailed Pygmy Tyrant of the lowlands.
Voice
High, insect-like 'tseek' notes and short, thin trills.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
7 cm, with a short, flat bill and a short tail, slightly longer than in Short-tailed Pygmy Tyrant. The upperparts are olive-green, the head greyish olive with whitish lores and eye-ring. The wings are dusky with yellow edges. The throat and breast are whitish with faint grey streaks, the belly white and the flanks yellowish. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Short-tailed Pygmy Tyrant Myiornis ecaudatus has a purer grey head, an even shorter tail and an unstreaked breast, and lives lower, in the Amazonian lowlands. Scale-crested Pygmy Tyrant Lophotriccus pileatus is larger, with a crest with rufous feather edges, and lives higher. Double-banded Pygmy Tyrant Lophotriccus vitiosus is larger, with a dark crest and two distinct wing bars.
Habitat
Humid foothill forest, lower montane forest and tall secondary forest, roughly between 400 and 1300 m. It keeps to the middle level and forest edges and catches small insects with quick sallies to leaves. The nest is a hanging globular nest with a side entrance.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Peru: on the east slope of the centre and south of the country, from Huánuco southwards. Bolivia: in the foothills of La Paz, Cochabamba and western Santa Cruz. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen in the foothills of Cuzco or La Paz for the high, insect-like notes; the bird often sits quietly in the middle level and, because of its size, is best found by sound.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species also occurs along forest edges and in secondary forest.
Scientific name
Myiornis albiventris | (Berlepsch & Sztolcman, 1894)
Berlepsch & Sztolcman described the species in 1894 as Orchilus albiventris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myiornis was introduced in 1901 by Bertoni. The genus name comes from Greek muia, 'fly', and ornis, 'bird'. The species name comes from Latin albus, 'white', and venter, 'belly'. The specimen the first description was based on came from La Merced, Junín, Peru.