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Yellow-throated Antwren | Myrmotherula ambigua
Geelkeelmiersluiper | Hormiguerito gorjiamarillo | Choquinha-de-coroa-listrada
The Yellow-throated Antwren is a small, black-and-white streaked antwren with a yellow throat and pale yellow underparts. It lives in the canopy of lowland forest on white-sand soils in the basin of the upper Rio Negro. In the guide area it occurs only in the far east of Colombia.
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Voice
The song is a slow, monotonous series of very high, whistled pew notes. Calls are short, high notes.
Recording: Mauricio Álvarez-Rebolledo (Colección de Sonidos Ambientales - Instituto Humboldt) — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
8–9 cm, small, with a short tail and a thin bill. The male has a black crown and back streaked white, a black-and-white streaked head with whitish cheeks and a pale yellow patch between the shoulders. The wings are black with white edges and tips to the coverts. The throat and breast are yellow, the belly paler, with a few dark streaks on the flanks. The female lacks the patch between the shoulders and has tawny-buff instead of white streaks on the head and upperparts; her underparts are pale tawny-buff.
Confusion species
Sclater's Antwren Myrmotherula sclateri is its closest relative and very similar, but lives south of the Amazon, far outside the range of this species. Pygmy Antwren Myrmotherula brachyura has a white throat with a black moustachial stripe and more often lives along forest edges. Cherrie's Antwren Myrmotherula cherriei has white, heavily black-streaked underparts and lives lower in the vegetation.
Habitat
Canopy and upper mid-levels of evergreen lowland forest on white-sand and mixed soils, in Colombia up to about 200 m, elsewhere mostly below 350 m and locally higher near tepuis. It searches in pairs for small arthropods among leaves, twigs and vines, often with mixed canopy flocks. Little is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: only in the far east, in Guainía and Vaupés. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in south-western Venezuela (Amazonas) and north-western Brazil, in the basin of the upper Rio Negro.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search canopy mixed flocks in white-sand forest, for example around Inírida and Mitú, preferably from a forest edge, a clearing or a viewpoint above the treetops. Look for the combination of streaked upperparts and a yellow throat.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Its habitat is remote and largely intact; the species is little studied.
Scientific name
Myrmotherula ambigua | Zimmer, 1932
Zimmer described the species in 1932 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Myrmotherula was introduced in 1858 by Sclater. The genus name is a diminutive of Myrmothera (Greek murmos, 'ant', and thēras, 'hunter'): little ant-hunter. The species name is Latin ambiguus, 'doubtful, uncertain'. Zimmer (1932) considered it practically certain that the new bird was a form of Myrmotherula sclateri, but did not unite them because of the wide gap between their ranges. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Duida, Amazonas, Venezuela.