Cinereous becard
The cinereous becard is a species of bird in the family Tityridae, the tityras, becards, and allies. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela, and possibly Ecuador.
Taxonomy and systematics
The cinereous becard was originally described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Muscicapa rufa in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The cinereous becard is now placed in the genus Pachyramphus that was introduced in 1839 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray. The generic name is from the Ancient Greek pakhus meaning "stout" or "thick" and rhamphos meaning "bill". The specific epithet rufus is Latin for "red". The English name "cinereous" means ash-colored. Some early twentieth century authors used the specific epithet cinereus for the species.The genus Pachyramphus has variously been assigned to the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae and the cotinga family Cotingidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed the placement of Pachyramphus in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment. In 1998 the American Ornithological Society was unsure where to place the genus and listed its members as incertae sedis but in 2011 moved them to Tityridae.
Some twentieth century authors treated the cinereous becard and the slaty becard as a single species called the "crested becard". They are sister species and form a superspecies.
The cinereous becard has two subspecies, the nominate P. r. rufous and P. r. juruanus.
Description
The cinereous becard is long and weighs about. Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a glossy black crown, a white forehead and lores, a dusky spot in front of the eye, and pearl-gray cheeks. Their upperparts are mostly pearl-gray and sometimes have a faint olive tinge on the upper back. Their wings are blackish with thin white edges on the outer flight feathers and wider white edges on the inner flight feathers and coverts. Their tail is slaty gray; the feathers sometimes have whitish edges at their tips. Their throat is whitish and their underparts light grayish that is darkest on the upper breast. Adult females have a dark chestnut-rufous crown, whitish to whitish gray lores, and a light buffy cinnamon face. Their upperparts are bright cinnamon-rufous. Their wings' flight feathers are blackish with rufescent edges and the greater coverts are cinnamon-rufous. Their tail is cinnamon. Their throat is whitish. Their upper breast is buffy cinnamon that becomes whiter on the rest of the underparts. Males of subspecies P. r. juruanus have the black of the crown extending further back onto the nape than on the nominate; females have more cinnamon-rufous underparts than the nominate. Both sexes of both subspecies have a dark iris, a blackish bill, and grayish legs and feet.Distribution and habitat
The cinereous becard is found from southern Panama across northern South America and the Amazon Basin. The nominate subspecies is the more northerly of the two and has by far the larger range. It is found from the area of the Panama Canal across northern Colombia. Its range in Colombia extends in the west south to Valle del Cauca Department and on the eastern side of the Andes to Meta Department. From Colombia its range continues east across northern Venezuela and the Guianas to the Atlantic in Brazil's Amapá state and from there south in Brazil to Mato Grosso. Subspecies P. r. juruanus is found from Loreto Department in eastern Peru east into western Brazil's Amazonas state. The species is tentatively known in Ecuador from old specimens, and the South American Classification Committee has no confirmed records in that country.The cinereous becard inhabits a wide variety of forest types in the tropical and lower subtropical zones. These include gallery forest, secondary forest, the edges of evergreen forest, deciduous woodlands, some scrublands, and agricultural areas and pastures with scattered trees. Coastally it also occurs in mangroves. In Panama it ranges between, in Colombia from sea level to, and in Venezuela from sea level to.