Slaty Antwren

Identification

The slaty antwren is 9 to 12 cm (3.5 to 4.7 in) long and weighs 8.5 to 10 g (0.30 to 0.35 oz). It is a smallish bird with a short tail. Adult males of the nominate subspecies are mostly dark gray with a hidden white patch between the shoulders. Their tail is dark gray with thin white edges to the feathers. Their wings are dark gray with white tips on the coverts. Their throat and upper breast are black; their crissum is dark gray with whitish tips on the feathers. Adult females have grayish olive upperparts with a browner tail. Their wings are browner than the back with rufous edges on the coverts. Their throat is pale cinnamon, their sides and flanks olive-brown, and the rest of their underparts tawny-tinged cinnamon that becomes yellowish brown on the crissum.<p>Males of subspecies M. s. sanctaemartae are much paler than nominate males, with browner edging on the flight feathers. The black on their underside is only on the throat and center of the uppermost breast. Females have much grayer upperparts and more yellowish-brown underparts than nominate females. Males of subspecies M. s. interior are intermediate between those of the nominate and sanctaemartae. Their white shoulder patch is small. Females are darker and more blue-gray than sanctaemartae females, with tawny-tinged cinnamon underparts.

Taxonomy

The slaty antwren has three subspecies, the nominate M. s. schisticolor (Lawrence, 1865), M. s. sanctaemartae (Allen, JA, 1900), and M. s. interior (Chapman, 1914).<p>The slaty antwren, Rio Suno antwren (M. sunensis), and Salvadori's antwren (M. minor) have similar morphology, behavior, and voices and may form a monophyletic group.

Scientific name

Myrmotherula schisticolor

Authority

(Lawrence, 1865)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Thamnophilidae

Genus

Myrmotherula

Range and habitat

The slaty antwren has a disjunct distribution. The nominate subspecies is by far the most widely distributed. One population of it is found from Chiapas in extreme southeastern Mexico through Guatemala, southern Belize, and the Caribbean slope of Honduras into northern Nicaragua. Another is found mostly on the Pacific slope through Costa Rica and spottily through Panama. A third population extends from Colombia's Western Andes south on most of Ecuador's Pacific slope. Subspecies M. s. sanctaemartae is found in Colombia's isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the Serranía del Perijá on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, and in the Venezuelan Andes and Coastal Ranges. Subspecies M. s. interior is found on the western slope of Colombia's Central Andes, in Coloimbia's Eastern Andes, and south on the eastern Andean slope through Ecuador and Peru almost to the Bolivian border.<p>The slaty antwren inhabits a variety of moist forested landscapes, generally at higher elevations than most others of its genus. In most of its range it occurs in foothill and montane evergreen forest, where it favors cloudforest, and in nearby secondary woodland. Along the Pacific slope from Costa Rica south and on the Caribbean slope in Venezuela it occurs in semi-humid forest. In Central America it generally ranges between sea level and 1,250 m (4,100 ft), though in Costa Rica it reaches 2,000 m (6,600 ft). In Colombia it ranges between 1,000 and 2,300 m (3,300 and 7,500 ft). In western Ecuador it mostly occurs between 400 and 1,450 m (1,300 and 4,800 ft) and in the east 900 and 1,700 m (3,000 and 5,600 ft).

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: declining.

Population trend

declining