Predicted Antwren
Herpsilochmus praedictus
Recently described Amazonian antwren. Males are gray with a bold white eyebrow and a black crown, wings, and tail. Females have white spots on a black crown and a rusty forehead. Found in humid forest, including seasonally flooded forest along big rivers and white sand forest, foraging from the middle levels to the canopy. Usually accompanies mixed-species flocks in the canopy. The song is a soft rolling trill. The rather similar male of the Aripuana Antwren has less black on the upperparts, and females have a paler forehead; Aripuana’s song is similar, but with fewer notes.
Identification
The predicted antwren is 11 to 12 cm (4.3 to 4.7 in) long and weighs about 11 g (0.39 oz). Adult males have a black crown and nape, a long whitish supercilium, and a black streak through the eye. The rest of their upperparts are gray with black on the scapulars. Their wings are black with white tips on the coverts and white edges on the flight feathers. Their tail is black with large white feather tips and white edges on the outermost. Their throat is pale creamy white and their breast and belly whitish. Adult females have a rusty forehead and lores, and a black crown with white speckles. Their upperparts are gray. Their throat is a creamier white than the male's.
Taxonomy
The predicted antwren was first described in 2013. The name came from field biologists' expectation that a new species of antwren would be found in southwestern Amazonia. Its discovery confirmed the prediction, and genetic and vocal analysis confirmed its identity as a species. Regional and worldwide taxonomic systems quickly recognized it.<p>The predicted antwren is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Herpsilochmus praedictus
- Authority
- Cohn-Haft & Bravo, 2013
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Thamnophilidae
- Genus
- Herpsilochmus
Range and habitat
The predicted antwren is found in the southern part of Brazil's Amazonas state, south of the Amazon between the rios Juruá and Madeira. Most of the sightings have been from the eastern half of its range, east of the Rio Purus. It inhabits the mid- to upper levels of humid evergreen forest, principally campinarana on sandy soil and terra firme on clay soils. It also occurs in seasonally flooded igapó but not várzea.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The predicted antwren is believed to be a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The predicted antwren's diet is known only from the stomach contents of specimens, which were the remains arthropods. It forages singly, in pairs, and in family groups and often as a member of a mixed-species feeding flock. It mostly forages between 5 and 30 m (15 and 100 ft) by gleaning prey from vegetation.<p>Nothing is known about the predicted antwren's breeding biology.<p>The predicted antwren's song is "a soft, purring, rolling trill...which initially rises in frequency...before declining again to a frequency similar to that on which it started". The song is part of the evidence for its treatment as a species, as its pace and the number of repeated notes differ from the songs of visually similar others of its genus. It has two distinctive calls, a "dull 'pwip' " and (more frequently heard) "a short, sharply-descending 'chew', given either singly or in series".
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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