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Plain Antvireo | Dysithamnus mentalis
Bosmiervireo | Batarito cabecigrís
The Plain Antvireo is a small, stocky antbird with a thick bill that moves with mixed-species flocks in the understorey of humid forest. The male is grey and olive with a dark cheek patch; the female has a rufous crown and a white eye-ring. In the guide area it lives from south-eastern Mexico to Panama.
Voice
A series of short notes that accelerates and drops slightly in pitch, like a bouncing ball, ending in a roll. Also short, nasal calls.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, stocky, with a large head, a short tail and a fairly thick, slightly hooked bill. Male head grey with a dark cheek patch, back olive-grey, wings dark with two narrow pale wingbars; throat whitish, breast greyish, belly pale yellow. Female crown rufous, obvious white eye-ring, olive-brown above, pale yellow below with an olive breast.
Confusion species
Streak-crowned Antvireo Dysithamnus striaticeps and Spot-crowned Antvireo Dysithamnus puncticeps have a streaked or spotted crown and (especially the male) fine streaks on the breast. Vireos and greenlets (family Vireonidae) are slimmer, with a finer bill, and are more restless. Slaty Antwren Myrmotherula schisticolor is smaller and the male has a black throat.
Habitat
Understorey and middle levels of humid evergreen lowland, foothill and lower montane forest, also semi-evergreen forest and older secondary forest, from sea level to about 1800 m, most numerous in the foothills. It gleans insects quietly from the undersides of leaves and twigs, usually in pairs and often in mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From south-eastern Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama. Outside the guide area in much of tropical South America, to north-eastern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
A regular member of understorey mixed flocks in humid forest; its calm, rather sluggish behaviour and big head stand out among the busier birds.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread in forest; disappears where forest is cleared entirely.
Scientific name
Dysithamnus mentalis | (Temminck, 1823)
Temminck described the species in 1823 as Myothera mentalis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dysithamnus was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Dysithamnus is Greek, from duō 'to plunge into' and thamnos 'bush', after its life in dense undergrowth. mentalis is Latin, from mentum 'chin', after the pale chin and throat. The specimen the first description was based on came from Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.