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Great Antshrike | Taraba major
Grote mierklauwier | Batará mayor
The Great Antshrike is the largest antbird in Trinidad: a heavy, crested bird with a hooked bill and red eyes that keeps to dense vegetation and is heard far more often than seen. Antshrikes owe their name to their shrike-like bill. The species does not occur in Tobago.
Voice
The song is a long, accelerating series of hollow notes that often ends in a growling krrr; northern birds give fewer notes than those in the south of the range. Also rattles, rolling whistles, growls and high whining notes.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–20 cm, bulky, with a large head, a short ragged crest, a heavy black hook-tipped bill and a red iris. The male is black above, with white spots on the wing-coverts, white edges to the primaries and white in the outer tail feathers; a white patch between the shoulders is usually hidden. The underparts are white, the flanks washed grey. The female is rufous-brown above, with a brighter rufous crown and tail, and white below with a pale cinnamon undertail.
Confusion species
Black-crested Antshrike Sakesphorus canadensis is much smaller, with a dark iris; the male has a black crest and breast and a brown back. The female Barred Antshrike Thamnophilus doliatus is also rufous, but smaller, with a yellow iris, buff underparts and a streaked head.
Habitat
Dense undergrowth at forest edges and clearings, in young secondary forest, along rivers and in bamboo thickets, also in neglected cacao; mostly below 1000 metres. It forages low in the vegetation for large insects and other invertebrates, and sometimes small lizards and frogs.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In Trinidad a widespread resident of forest edge and thickets; absent from Tobago and unknown elsewhere in the region. Outside the region from southern Mexico through Central America to northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Trinidad in the Northern Range, including around the Asa Wright Nature Centre, and in other overgrown forest edges. The song is the best lead; patience is then needed to see the bird in the dense growth.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species has a very large range and benefits from forest edge and secondary growth.
Scientific name
Taraba major | (Vieillot, 1816)
Vieillot described the species in 1816 as Thamnophilus major; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Taraba was introduced in 1831 by Lesson. According to Jobling, Taraba is an anagram of the genus Batara Lesson; the Tupí word tarabe (an Amazon parrot) may also play a part. major is Latin for 'greater', after its large size for an antshrike. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.