- Cranioleuca muelleri
Identification
14-15 cm. A dark Spintetail with scaly-looking underparts.
- Narrow pale supercilium
- Dull brownish face
- Dark reddish-chestnut crown
- Rich dark brown back, brown rump
- Mostly dark reddish-chestnut wings
- Dark chestnut, graduated tail, rectrices stiffened basally
- Pale greyish chin, faintly scaled, getting darker and more heavily scaled on throat
- Pale buff-brown breast and belly with dark brown feather tips, creating a scaled appearance
- Brown flanks and undertail-coverts
Sexes similar. Juveniles have uniform upperparts with an indistinct ochraceous collar.
Distribution
Lower Amazonina Brazil and Mexiana Island.
A poorly known, uncommon restricted-range species. Endangered by habitat loss.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species.
Habitat
Found in flooded tropical evergreen forest, prefers undergrowth of várzea forest.
Occurs from 0 to 200 m.
Behaviour
Diet
Feeds on arthropods.
Usually seen foraging in pairs, often in mixed-species flocks. Forages from undergrowth to mid-storey of forest, hitching along small branches and acrobatically gleaning items from bark and debris.
Breeding
No information. An unconfirmed record of a nest describes it as a globular malss made of sticks and placed in a tree.
Movements
This is a resident species.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2016. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2016, with updates to August 2016. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2016)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Scaled Spinetail. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 8 December 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Scaled_Spinetail
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.
