Espinero Liso

Identificación

The plain thornbird is 16 to 17 cm (6.3 to 6.7 in) long and weighs about 20 to 31 g (0.71 to 1.1 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a dull brown stripe behind the eye on an otherwise pale buff-brown face. Their crown and upperparts are dull brown. Their wings are mostly dull brown with darker brown primary coverts and some rufescence. Their tail is dull brown. Their throat is pale and the rest of their underparts are mostly dirty buff-white. Their iris is brown to grayish white, their bill dark with a yellowish base to the mandible, and their legs and feet gray. Juveniles have mottled upperparts. Subspecies P. i. castilloi has a somewhat grayish face, somewhat olivaceous (less rufescent) upperparts, and more brownish tail and undertail coverts.

Taxonomía

The plain thornbird was formally described in 1887 by the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway based on a specimen collected in Caracas, Venezuela. He coined the binomial name Phacellodomus inornatus. Its specific epithet is Latin meaning "plain" or "unadorned".<p>The plain thornbird's taxonomy is unsettled. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), and the Clements taxonomy follow a 2020 study that compared mitochondrial DNA sequences and treat it as a species with two subspecies, the nominate P. i. inornatus (Ridgway, 1887) and P. i. castilloi (Phelps Jr &amp; Aveledo, 1987). The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society treats the two taxa as subspecies of the rufous-fronted thornbird (P. rufifrons).

Nombre científico

Phacellodomus inornatus

Autoridad

Ridgway, 1887

Orden

Passeriformes

Familia

Furnariidae

Género

Phacellodomus

Distribución y hábitat

The nominate subspecies of the plain thornbird is found in north-central Venezuela between the states of Falcón and Miranda. Subspecies P. i. castilloi is found in central and western Venezuela from Sucre and Monagas west into northeastern Colombia as far as Meta Department. The species inhabits a variety of landscapes whose common features are dense thickets and at least some trees. They include arid lowland scrublands; tropical deciduous, gallery, and secondary forest; and llanos and savannah grasslands. In elevation it mostly ranges from sea level to 950 m (3,100 ft) but reaches 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Colombia.

Migración

Especie residente

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Especie residente.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: estable.

Tendencia poblacional

estable