Chestnut-backed Antbird
Poliocrania exsul
Medium-sized antbird with pale blue facial skin. Look for warm brown back and gray head; males have entirely gray body, females brown. Frequently flicks tail down and slowly raises it back up. Sticks to the understory in mature forest, where it can be difficult to get a clear view. Usually in pairs. Distinctive song: two or three whistles, the last note dropping in pitch.
Identification
The chestnut-backed antbird is heavy-bodied and short-tailed, typically 14 centimetres (5.5 in) long, and weighing 28 grams (0.99 oz). Both sexes have a pale blue bare patch of skin around each eye. The adult male has a blackish head, neck and breast, and the rest of the upperparts, wings and tail are chestnut. The flanks and the lower belly are a somewhat darker brown. The female has a brownish-black head and neck, but this does not extend to the breast. Her underparts are a darker chestnut in the nominate subspecies of the Caribbean lowlands from Nicaragua to Panama, but more rufous in M. e. occidentalis of the Pacific lowlands in Costa Rica and Panama. M. e. niglarus from eastern Panama and far north-western Colombia (northern Chocó Department) is similar. Young birds are duller and slatier than the adults.<p>The subspecies found in far south-east Panama (Darién Province), Colombia (except northern Chocó Department) and Ecuador, P. e. maculifer and P. e. cassini, have two wing bars consisting of white spots. They were once considered a separate species, the wing-spotted antbird (P. maculifer), but are vocally similar to the subspecies without spots on the wings, and the two groups hybridize where their distributions come into contact.<p>This species has a grating naar call, and the male's song is a whistled peeet peeew answered by the female's higher pitched version.<p>The chestnut-backed antbird is normally found as pairs throughout the year, but occasionally joins mixed-species feeding flocks or army ants. It feeds on insects, other arthropods, and sometimes small frogs or lizards taken from leaf litter and vine tangles in low vegetation or on the ground. It is easier to hear than see in its dense habitat, but can be attracted by imitating its whistled song. It may then give a territorial display with puffed-up body, drooped wings, and pumping tail.
Taxonomy
The chestnut-backed antbird was described by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1859 and given the binomial name Myrmeciza exsul. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2013 found that the genus Myrmeciza, as then defined, was polyphyletic. In the resulting rearrangement to create monophyletic genera the chestnut-backed antbird was moved to a newly erected genus Poliocrania. The name of the new genus combines the Ancient Greek words polios "ash-gray" and kranion "head" or "skull". The genus is monospecific.<p>There are five subspecies:
- Scientific name
- Poliocrania exsul
- Authority
- (Sclater, PL, 1859)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Paridae
- Genus
- Poliocrania
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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