White-breasted Antbird
Rhegmatorhina hoffmannsi
Striking antbird with a conspicuous white throat and breast. Males have a black cap, brown back, and gray belly, while females have a cinnamon cap and underparts scaled black-and-chestnut. Note the bare yellowish eyering in both sexes. Found in humid forest, where it forages in the understory, exclusively around army-ant swarms. The song is a descending series of whistled notes, finishing with a few harsh sharp notes.
Identification
The white-breasted antbird is 14 to 15 cm (5.5 to 5.9 in) long and weighs 28 to 34 g (0.99 to 1.2 oz). Both sexes have a crest and a pale greenish yellow ring of bare skin around the eye. Adult males have a black forehead, crown, and nape. Their upperparts, wings, and tail are olive-brown with rufous edges on the wing feathers. Their face, throat, and breast are white and the rest of their underparts olive-gray. Adult females have a similar pattern to males but with black-streaked chestnut on the crown, a rufous-chestnut nape, and buff-edged black tips on the feathers of their upperparts, wing coverts, and belly.
Taxonomy
The five members of genus Rhegmatorhina are sisters to the three species of genus Gymnopithys. The white-breasted antbird frequently hybridizes with the congeneric harlequin antbird (R. berlepschi). The white-breasted antbird is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Rhegmatorhina hoffmannsi
- Authority
- (Hellmayr, 1907)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Thamnophilidae
- Genus
- Rhegmatorhina
Range and habitat
The white-breasted antbird is found in central Amazonian Brazil from the east bank of the lower Rio Madeira in Amazonas south through Rondônia into western Mato Grosso. It primarily inhabits the understorey of humid terra firme evergreen forest though it also occurs in transitional forest between it and seasonally flooded areas. Its range is entirely below 300 m (1,000 ft) of elevation.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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