Fulvous-dotted Treerunner

Identification

The star-chested treerunner is 13 to 15 cm (5.1 to 5.9 in) long and weighs 21 to 22 g (0.74 to 0.78 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a wide but indistinct dull rufescent brownish supercilium, dull reddish brown ear coverts, and a more rufescent moustacial area. Their crown is dark reddish brown and their upperparts slightly paler. Their wing coverts are reddish brown, their primary coverts dark fuscous, and their flight feathers dark fuscous with dark rufescent edges. Their tail is dark reddish brown; the ends of the tail feathers lack barbs, giving a spiny appearance. Their throat is whitish. Their breast has a rufous-brown background; its upper part has a few rows of wide whitish spots with black surrounds and below them are several rows of smaller, more elongated black-edged white spots. The spots disappear by the lower breast. Their belly, flanks, and undertail coverts are plain rufous-brown. Their iris is dark brown, their maxilla horn to whitish horn with a browner base, their mandible horn, and their legs and feet grayish to brownish.

Taxonomy

Scientific name

Margarornis stellatus

Authority

Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1873

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Furnariidae

Genus

Margarornis

Range and habitat

The star-chested treerunner is found in Colombia's Western and Central Andes from Chocó and Antioquia departments and south into western Ecuador as far as Pichincha Province. There is also a single record further south in Chimborazo Province. It inhabits montane evergreen forest, where it favors areas heavy with moss and epiphytes. In elevation it ranges from 1,200 to 1,900 m (3,900 to 6,200 ft) in Ecuador and from 1,200 to 2,200 m (3,900 to 7,200 ft) in Colombia.

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

The star-chested treerunner is a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The star-chested treerunner feeds on a variety of arthropods. It typically forages singly or in pairs, usually in mixed-species feeding flocks, and from the forest's mid-storey to its canopy. It acrobatically hitches up trunks and along limbs using its tail for support, and gleans prey from bark, moss, and epiphytes, often while hanging upside down.<p>The star-chested treerunner's breeding season spans at least February to April, but nothing else is known about its breeding biology.<p>Though both xeno-canto and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library have several recordings of star-chested treerunner vocalizations, the species' song has not been described in words.

Conservation

Population trend

declining