Ayacucho Thistletail
Asthenes ayacuchensis
Poorly known thistletail found only in a small area of the high Andes east of the city of Ayacucho in southern Peru. It is brown above, gray below, with a long wispy tail and a reddish-orange chin patch. It has a darker chin patch than Vilcabamba Thistletail and Puna Thistletail, and is not known to overlap with either species. It inhabits scrub and stunted forest near treeline. Song is a rapid, high-pitched trill.
Identification
The Ayacucho thistletail is 18 to 20 cm (7.1 to 7.9 in) long. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a brownish face with a paler brown supercilium. Their crown is brownish faintly spotted with black. Their back and rump are brownish and their wings dark brown with rufous edges to the feathers. Their tail is a paler but more rufescent brown than the back; it is long and deeply forked with few barbs at the feather ends that give a ragged appearance. Their chin is grayish with a bright reddish chestnut center and the rest of their underparts are a plain darker grayish. Their iris is dark brown, their bill blackish to dark gray with sometimes a pale base to the mandible, and their legs and feet dark bluish gray.
Taxonomy
The Ayacucho thistletail was originally described as a subspecies of the white-chinned thistletail (then Schizoeaca fuliginosa, now Asthenes fuliginosa). It was later treated as conspecific with what is now the Vilcabamba thistletail (Asthenes vilcabambae). These species and several others were long assigned to genus Schizoeaca but genetic data showed that the genus is embedded within Asthenes. A phylogenetic study published in 2015 that examined both DNA sequence data and vocalizations of members of the genus Asthenes found that the Ayacucho thistletail was more similar to the eye-ringed thistletail than it was to the Vilcabamba thistletail. Based on this evidence it was elevated to species rank.<p>The Ayacucho thistletail is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Asthenes ayacuchensis
- Authority
- (Vaurie, Weske & Terborgh, 1972)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Asthenes
Range and habitat
The Ayacucho thistletail is found in the northern part of Peru's Department of Ayacucho west of the Apurímac River. It primarily inhabits elfin forest and Polylepis woodlands in the tree line ecotone. It favors areas with dense stands of Chusquea bamboo. In elevation it ranges mostly between 3,300 and 3,700 m (10,800 and 12,100 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The Ayacucho thistletail is believed to be a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The Ayacucho thistletail's diet and foraging behavior are essentially unknown. It is usually seen singly or in pairs. It is assumed to feed mostly on arthropods that it gleans from foliage.<p>Nothing is known about the Ayacucho thistletail's breeding biology.<p>The Ayacucho thistletail's primary song is "a rapid, high-pitched, even trill lasting two seconds in duration, delivered at a steady frequency". Its main call is a high-pitched "pyeek".
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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