All species › Passerines › Ovenbirds and woodcreepers › Chiriqui Foliage-gleaner
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › All other modern birds Neoaves › Landbirds Telluraves › Falcons, parrots and passerines Australaves › Falcons and passerines Eufalconimorphae › Parrots and passerines Psittacopasserae
Chiriqui Foliage-gleaner | Automolus exsertus
Chiriquíbladspeurder | Ticotico de Chiriquí
The Chiriqui Foliage-gleaner is a brown foliage-gleaner with a pale throat and rufous tail, found in the understorey of humid forest on the Pacific slope of southern Costa Rica and western Panama. It was long treated as the same species as Fawn-throated and Ochre-throated Foliage-gleaners and differs from them mainly in song. Its range lies almost entirely within the guide area.
Voice
The song is a fast series of harsh notes that clearly differs from that of Fawn-throated Foliage-gleaner; this difference in song was an important reason for splitting the species.
Recording: Paul Driver — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–19 cm. Upperparts plain olive-brown, tail rufous. A buffy eyering and line behind the eye. Throat pale buff, rest of the underparts browner. Bill fairly stout and straight. In the field barely separable from Fawn-throated Foliage-gleaner.
Confusion species
Fawn-throated Foliage-gleaner Automolus cervinigularis is almost identical but lives on the Caribbean slope; range and song are the best features. Western Woodhaunter Automolus virgatus is smaller and finely streaked on the head and underparts.
Habitat
Understorey of humid lowland and foothill forest, also mature secondary forest and edges with dense vines. Forages singly or in pairs among dead leaves and vines for insects, often with mixed flocks. Like its relatives it nests in a burrow in an earth bank.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Pacific slope of southern Costa Rica and western Panama. Not known outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Where Fawn-throated and Chiriqui Foliage-gleaners approach each other, song is the best guide; a recording helps with identification.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The range is small and the Pacific lowlands are heavily deforested, so the species depends on the remaining forest.
Scientific name
Automolus exsertus | Bangs, 1901
Bangs described the species in 1901 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Automolus was introduced in 1853 by Reichenbach. Automolus is Greek, from automolos 'deserter, defector'; why Reichenbach chose the name is unclear. exsertus is Latin for 'prominent, protruding, thrust out'; exactly what Bangs was referring to is unclear. The specimen the first description was based on came from Divalá, Chiriquí, Panama.