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Dapple-Throat | Arcanator orostruthus
Buulbuullijster | Tordina Manchada
The Dapple-Throat is a shy, thrush-like ground bird of wet montane forest and the only member of the genus Arcanator. Its name refers to the finely black-and-white speckled throat. Within the region it is known only from a few isolated mountain massifs in northern Mozambique.
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Voice
The song is a series of clear whistled notes, often given from cover at dawn and dusk; there is also a sharp, grating alarm and a soft tsip contact note. Many birds are heard long before they are seen.
Recording: Raphaël Jordan — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 18 cm, compact, with a fairly short tail, strong legs and a straight, dark bill. The upperparts are warm olive-brown, the rump and tail more rufous-brown. The face is greyish with dark lores. Throat and upper breast are white with dense black spots, forming a finely speckled bib; there is a yellow-orange patch on the breast sides and the belly is olive-grey. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller, with a less crisply marked throat. It keeps low in the undergrowth and hops a great deal over the leaf litter.
Confusion species
White-Chested Alethe (Chamaetylas fuelleborni) is larger, with clean white underparts lacking spots and a darker head. Young White-Starred Robins (Pogonocichla stellata) are yellowish-spotted but smaller, with yellow patches in the tail. Spotted Ground Thrush (Geokichla guttata) has large black drops over the whole underside and white wing bars. Orange Ground Thrush (Geokichla gurneyi) is orange below. The combination of a speckled throat and orange-yellow breast sides is diagnostic.
Habitat
Moist evergreen montane forest, especially undergrowth of gingers and ferns along streams, roughly between 1,200 and 2,000 m. It forages on the ground and in the lower litter layer for insects, spiders and other invertebrates.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region only in northern Mozambique, in the montane forests of Mount Namuli, Mount Mabu and the Njesi Plateau in Niassa; a separate subspecies has been described from here. Beyond the region the species occurs only in the Usambara and Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
One of the hardest birds in the region, both to reach and to see. Sit quietly by a stream in the forest of Namuli or Mabu early in the morning and listen for whistled song and rustling in the litter. Patience at one spot pays better than walking about.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. Its range is small and fragmented, and the montane forests are being eroded by cultivation, logging and fire. The Mozambican populations are poorly studied; Namuli and Mabu have only recently become better known and enjoy little formal protection.
Scientific name
Arcanator orostruthus | (Vincent, 1933)
Vincent described the species in 1933 as Phyllastrephus orostruthus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Arcanator was introduced in 1986 by Irwin & Clancey. Arcanator comes from the Latin arcanus, 'secret, hidden', alluding to the confused and obscure taxonomic history of this species (Irwin & Clancey, 1986). orostruthus comes from the Greek oros, 'mountain', and strouthos, 'sparrow, small bird' — a 'mountain bird', for the montane forests it inhabits. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mount Namuli, Mozambique.