Formicario maschera-bianca

Identificazione

The white-masked antbird is about 14 cm (5.5 in) long. The sexes are alike. Adults are mostly bright rufous chestnut. Their crown, nape, lower ear coverts, and the sides of their throat are black. Their lores, a wide area around their eye, their chin, and their throat are white. Juveniles are a duller rufous chestnut, with less white on the face and with sooty brown replacing the adult's black on the head. Adults have a brown or dark brown iris and brownish orange or ochre orange legs and feet. Juveniles' iris is dark gray and their legs and feet gray-tinged dirty yellow. All ages have a blackish slate bill with silvery white cutting edges.

Tassonomia

The white-masked antbird was known only from its type specimen from its discovery in 1937 until 2001 when its status as a species was confirmed. It had been suggested instead to be a hybrid of two antbird species. It shares genus Pithys with the white-plumed antbird (P. albifrons). It has no subspecies.

Nome scientifico

Pithys castaneus

Autorità

Berlioz, 1938

Ordine

Passeriformi

Famiglia

Thamnophilidae

Genere

Pithys

Areale e habitat

The white-masked antbird is found in northern Peru in a small area from northeastern Amazonas Department into western Loreto. It inhabits a type of stunted forest called varillal that grows on white sand soil. Its floor typically has a thick layer of humus and dead leaves, and the trees reach a height of about 30 m (100 ft). All of the known sites are below an elevation of 300 m (1,000 ft).

Migrazione

Resident species

Comportamento

The white-masked antbird is not known to migrate.<p>The white-masked antbird is an obligate ant follower that feeds on arthropods that flee foraging army ant swarms. It typically forages near the front of the ant swarm, sallying or dropping to the ground from a low perch. Up to four have been observed at a swarm.<p>Juvenile white-masked antbirds have been observed in July but nothing else is known about the species' breeding biology.<p>The white-masked antbird's song is "a rising, whiny whistled huuuuuureee? with short, quiet, chiming tur'e'e notes often interspersed between whistles". Its calls include "a quiet, descending, mewed whew, a harsh, descending t'char...a sharp tchip! [and] a low, barely descending, harsh grrah".

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

declining