All species › Passerines › Antbirds › Yellow-rumped Antwren
Yellow-rumped Antwren | Euchrepomis sharpei
Geelstuitmiersluiper | Hormiguerito lomiamarillo | Zidedê-de-sobre-amarelo
The Yellow-rumped Antwren is a small, slender antwren found only in the Yungas of southeastern Peru and western Bolivia. It lives high in the canopy of undisturbed cloud forest and almost always travels with large mixed flocks. It is the only member of the genus Euchrepomis restricted to the guide area.
No photograph of a living wild bird of this species with a suitable Creative Commons licence exists. Do you have one that meets the rules? Send it in.
Voice
The song begins with countable notes that rise and shorten, then becomes a high trill of dozens of notes. Also a rich, sweet tsyu.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, small and slender, with a thin bill and a fairly long tail. The male has a black crown and nape, an olive-green mantle and a bright yellow lower back and rump with black-edged feathers. The wing coverts have yellow tips forming two wing bars and the bend of the wing is yellow. Throat and breast are pale grey, becoming yellower on the belly. The female has an olive-brown crown, nape and eyeline, a grey supercilium, little or no yellow at the bend of the wing and a more olive-yellow rump.
Confusion species
Rufous-rumped Antwren Euchrepomis callinota has a rufous rump and occurs in Peru south to Cusco, locally in the same area but usually somewhat higher. Chestnut-shouldered Antwren Euchrepomis humeralis lives in the lowlands and has a chestnut bend of the wing and rump. Greenlets (Hylophilus, Pachysylvia) lack wing bars and a black crown.
Habitat
High canopy and emergent trees of undisturbed lower and middle cloud forest, mostly between 1100 and 1680 m, occasionally down to 750 m. It forages for arthropods by moving quickly and acrobatically through dense foliage and vines, in pairs or family groups and almost always with large mixed flocks. It appears to breed in the rainy season from November.
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 eastern slope of the Andes in Cusco and Puno, locally, including Manu National Park; possibly also in Madre de Dios. Bolivia: in the Yungas of La Paz and Cochabamba. 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
Search large canopy mixed flocks along the Manu road and in the Yungas of La Paz at 1100–1700 m. Birds are most active and vocal from June to December.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The population is estimated at 2,500–10,000 mature individuals and is declining; the range is small and fragmented. The main threat is clearance of accessible forest for coffee, citrus and, at lower elevations, coca and tea; large tracts of pristine habitat remain.
Scientific name
Euchrepomis sharpei | (Berlepsch, 1901) (GBIF: Terenura sharpei)
Berlepsch described the species in 1901 as Terenura sharpei; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Euchrepomis was introduced in 2012 by Bravo, Remsen, Whitney & Brumfield. The genus name combines Greek euchrōs, 'ruddy, bright-coloured', and epōmis, 'point of the shoulder'. The species name honours the British ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847–1909), curator of the bird collection at the British Museum. The specimen the first description was based on came from Quebrada Honda, Yungas, Bolivia.