White-browed Tapaculo

Scytalopus superciliaris

Small, mouse-like bird of the high Andes in NW Argentina. Found in lower, more humid forest than similar Zimmer’s Tapaculo. Prefers humid montane forest hillsides and ravines, especially with dense understory. Most often found by voice: a burry, emphatic, two part ”skyew-yew”.

Identification

The white-browed tapaculo is 10.5 cm (4.1 in) long. The nominate adult's most striking features are its long white supercilium, throat, and upper breast. The back and wings are grayish brown to brownish gray. The lower breast is gray. The rump is brown with fine bars. The flanks, belly, and crissum (the area around the cloaca) are pale olive-brown with black bars. Subspecies S. s. santabarbarae is darker, with upper parts trending to chestnut and the underparts being blackish-brown instead of gray.

Taxonomy

The white-browed tapaculo has at times been considered a subspecies of Magellanic tapaculo (Scytalopus magellanicus). It and Zimmer's tapaculo (S. zimmeri) form a superspecies. It has two subspecies, the nominate Scytalopus superciliaris superciliaris and S. s. santabarbarae.

Scientific name
Scytalopus superciliaris
Authority
Cabanis, 1883
Order
Passeriformes
Family
Rhinocryptidae
Genus
Scytalopus

Range and habitat

The white-browed tapaculo is found only in northwestern Argentina. The nominate subspecies ranges from Jujuy Province south to northern La Rioja Province. Subspecies S. s. santabarbarae is probably limited to the Santa Bárbara Mountains of Jujuy, though it might also extend into Salta Province.<p>The white-browed tapaculo inhabits the undergrowth of Alnus and Polylepis woodlands, often in shaded rocky ravines. In elevation it ranges from 1,500 to 3,350 m (4,920 to 10,990 ft).

Migration
Resident species

Behavior

No information has been published about the white-browed tapaculo's diet or foraging behavior.<p>The white-browed tapaculo lays its eggs between October and December, and possibly in September. Two eggs are laid. Three nests have been described; they were open cups placed at the end of tunnels 0.3 to 0.5 m (0.98 to 1.64 ft) long.<p>The white-browed tapaculo's song is "a single burred note...followed after short pause by drawn-out descending “churr”..., repeated for several minutes at [a] regular pace" [1].

Conservation

Population trend
stable

Photos

Distribution

Bird Calls

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