Black-chinned antbird
The black-chinned antbird is a species of bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The black-chinned antbird was described by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1857 and given the binomial name Hypocnemis melanopogon; it was later transferred to genus Hypocnemoides. It shares that genus with the band-tailed antbird. However, some authors have said that the "easons for treatment of Hypocnemoides maculicauda as a separate species from H. melanopogon are weak".The further taxonomy of the black-chinned antbird is unsettled. The International Ornithological Congress assigns it three subspecies, the nominate H. m. melanopogon, H. m. minor, and H. m. occidentalis. The Clements taxonomy and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World do not recognize occidentalis, including it within the nominate.
This article generally follows the two-subspecies model because the range demarcation and plumage differences between the nominate melanopogon and occidentalis are not clear.
Description
The black-chinned antbird is long and weighs about. Adult males have leaden gray upperparts. Their tail is slate gray with narrow white feather tips. Their flight feathers are leaden gray with lighter gray edges and their wing coverts are black with gray and white edges. Their throat is black. Their underparts are mostly a paler gray than their upperparts and with a grayish white belly. Adult females have the same leaden upperparts as males. Their throat is whitish with black and gray speckles. Their breast is mottled with gray and white and an olive gray tinge. Their sides and flanks are grayer than their breast, and their belly and undertail coverts are gray tinged with buff. Both sexes have a gray iris and blue-gray legs and feet. Males have a black bill; females have a black maxilla and a gray mandible. Subspecies H. m. melanopogon ''sensu lato and H. m. minor have essentially the same plumage. The putative subspecies H. m. occidentalis is described as having a smaller black throat patch and paler underparts with more gray spotting than H. m. melanopogon sensu stricto''.Distribution and habitat
Under the two-subspecies model, the nominate black-chinned antbird is found from eastern Colombia east through southern and eastern Venezuela and the Guianas to the Atlantic in northeastern Brazil and south into far northeastern Ecuador, northeastern Peru, and Brazil north of the Amazon. The IOC places occidentalis in "Colombia, Venezuela and nw Brazil", melanopogon in "the Guianas and n Brazil", and makes no mention of Ecuador or Peru. Hilty places occidentalis in southwestern Venezuela and melanopogon in northeastern and east-central Venezuela. He notes that the species' range extends into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, the Guianas, and Brazil without differentiating which subspecies is where. All relevant sources agree that subspecies H. m. minor is found in south-central Amazonian Brazil south of the Amazon between the Purus and Tocantins rivers.The black-chinned antbird inhabits lowland evergreen forest, almost always in várzea forest along larger rivers, along smaller watercourses, and along the edges of lakes. It favors low vegetation that overhangs water. In elevation it reaches in Venezuela, in Colombia, and in Ecuador.