Amazonian black tyrant
The Amazonian black-tyrant is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is particularly native to riverbanks of the Amazon rainforest.
Taxonomy and systematics
Image:Knipolegus poecilocercus - Amazonian Black-Tyrant, Anavilhanas islands, Novo Airão, Amazonas, Brazil.jpg|thumb|left|A female Amazonian black tyrant in Anavilhanas National Park, Novo Airão, Amazonas, BrazilThe Amazonian black tyrant was formally described by August von Pelzeln in 1868 as Empidochanes coecilocerecus. It was later transferred to genus Phaeotriccus which was still later merged into Knipolegus.
The Amazonian black tyrant is monotypic. It is called "maria-preta-do-igapó" in Brazilian Portuguese, "Viudita-negra Amazónica" in Ecuadorian and Peruvian Spanish, and "Atrapamoscas Remoloncito" in Venezuelan Spanish.
Description
The Amazonian black tyrant is about long and weighs about. It has unusually large eyes. Adult males are almost entirely glossy black with a slight bluish sheen. Their primaries have a brownish tinge. Adult females have a mostly olive-brown head and upperparts with grayish white lores and eye-ring and rufous uppertail coverts. Their wings are dusky with buff edges on the flight feathers and cinnamon-buff tips on the coverts that show as two wing bars. Their tail is dusky with cinnamon edges on the feathers. Their underparts are mostly pale buff with brownish olive streaks on the lower throat, across the breast, and along the flanks. Both sexes have a dark brown iris and black legs and feet. Males have a bluish or bluish gray bill with a black tip; female's bills are dusky brown. It and the riverside tyrant are very similar, but the riverside is larger and generally inhabits more open landscapes.Distribution and habitat
The Amazonian black tyrant is found from eastern Colombia east into western Venezuela's Apure state and south through its Amazonas state into northwestern Brazil and western Guyana. It also ranges along the Ucayali River in northeastern Peru to the upper Amazon and in Brazil along the Amazonian tributary rivers Negro, Branco, Madeira, lower Xingu, and Tocantins, and along the Amazon's main stem to its delta. There is an isolated population in extreme eastern Ecuador and sightings have been documented in Suriname.The Amazonian black tyrant inhabits várzea forest where it favors understory thickets and areas near open water with dense vines. In Ecuador and Peru it is known almost entirely at blackwater rivers and lakes. In elevation it ranges from sea level to in Brazil and up to in Colombia and in Venezuela and Ecuador.