All species › Passerines › Manakins › Choco Manakin
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
Choco Manakin | Cryptopipo litae
Chocómanakin | Saltarín del Chocó
The Choco Manakin is a plain green, fairly large manakin without colour patches, in which male and female are almost alike. It lives in the understorey of humid forest of the Chocó region and is inconspicuous and little known. In the guide area it occurs only in eastern Panama, at the edge of its range.
Voice
Rarely vocal and poorly known. Soft, high whistles and a short, dry call have been described.
Recording: Mailer Mosquera — CC BY-NC 4.0 · Converted to mp3, mono, full length · iNaturalist
Identification
12–13 cm. Fairly large for a manakin, with a relatively long tail and a short, dark bill. Upperparts plain dark moss-green, wings and tail slightly darker without wing bars. Underparts olive-green, becoming paler and slightly yellower on the belly. Eye dark, legs grey. Male and female are hardly separable in the field.
Confusion species
The female Velvety Manakin Lepidothrix velutina is smaller, shorter-tailed and brighter grass-green, with a yellower belly. The female White-ruffed Manakin Corapipo altera is smaller and has a grey throat. Ochre-bellied Flycatcher Mionectes oleagineus has an ochre belly and constantly flicks one wing; Olive-striped Flycatcher Mionectes olivaceus has streaked underparts and a pale spot behind the eye.
Habitat
Understorey and lower mid-storey of humid, mature lowland and foothill forest, mainly in the hills, up to about 1500 m. It eats small fruits and insects and visits fruiting shrubs, sometimes with other manakins. Little is known about its display and breeding.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Eastern Panama: Darién (including Cerro Pirre) and Guna Yala, with a few records in eastern Panamá province. Outside the guide area in western Colombia and north-western Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Most often reported around Cana on the slopes of Cerro Pirre in Darién and at Nusagandi. Best found at fruiting shrubs in the understorey of mature forest.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Scarce and local in the guide area; it depends on unbroken humid forest, which is declining in eastern Panama through deforestation.
Scientific name
Cryptopipo litae | (Hellmayr, 1906) (GBIF: Xenopipo holochlora)
Hellmayr described the species in 1906 as Chloropipo holochlora litae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cryptopipo was introduced in 2013 by Ohlson, Fjeldså & Ericson. Cryptopipo combines Greek kruptos 'hidden' with pipo 'manakin', after the inconspicuous appearance and the long-obscured relationships. litae refers to Lita in Imbabura, Ecuador, where the type specimen was found. The specimen the first description was based on came from Lita, Imbabura, Ecuador.