All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › White-bellied Tody-Tyrant
White-bellied Tody-Tyrant | Hemitriccus griseipectus
Witborsttodietiran | Titirijí ventriblanco | Maria-de-barriga-branca
The White-bellied Tody-Tyrant is the southern counterpart of the White-eyed Tody-Tyrant and lives in Amazonian forest south of the Amazon. It is a small, olive-green tyrant with conspicuously white underparts. It keeps to the middle levels of tall forest.
Voice
Short series of rapid, dry pik notes and short rattles from the middle levels of the forest.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a flat bill and a fairly short tail. The upperparts are olive-green. A narrow whitish eye-ring and pale lores give a spectacled face. The wings are dark with two yellow wing bars. The throat and belly are white, the breast washed pale grey, with at most a tinge of yellow on the flanks and undertail coverts. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
White-eyed Tody-Tyrant Hemitriccus zosterops lives north of the Amazon and has a yellower belly and a streaked, olive breast. Zimmer's Tody-Tyrant Hemitriccus minimus is smaller and yellower below. Flammulated Bamboo Tyrant Hemitriccus flammulatus is browner, has a streaked breast and lives in bamboo.
Habitat
Tall humid terra firme lowland forest and foothill forest, also old secondary forest, up to about 1000 m. It forages alone or in pairs in the middle levels for insects, which it picks from the undersides of leaves with short sallies.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Peru: in the eastern lowlands south of the Amazon, from southern Loreto to Madre de Dios and Puno. Bolivia: in the north and along the foot of the Andes. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Brazil south of the Amazon and in eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In tall terra firme forest in Madre de Dios, for example along the Manu or the Tambopata, listen for dry ticking series at mid-level and look for a small bird with white underparts.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range, but is sensitive to deforestation.
Scientific name
Hemitriccus griseipectus | (Snethlage, HMMEE, 1907)
Snethlage, HMMEE described the species in 1907 as Euscarthmus griseipectus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Hemitriccus was introduced in 1860 by Cabanis & Heine. The genus name comes from Greek hēmi-, 'half, small', and trikkos, an unidentified small bird, used by ornithologists for tyrant flycatchers. The species name comes from Medieval Latin griseus, 'grey', and pectus, 'breast'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Alcobaça, Rio Tocantins, Brazil.