Cinereous mourner
The cinereous mourner is a species of bird in the family Tityridae, the tityras, becards, and allies. It is found in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Taxonomy and systematics
The cinereous mourner was originally described in 1817 as Ampelis hypopyrra. It was later reassigned to genus Laniocera that Lesson had erected in 1841. Well into the twentieth century authors variously placed that genus in Cotingidae, the manakin family Pipridae, or the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed the placement of Laniocera in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment. The species' English name "cinereous" means "ash-colored".The cinereous mourner shares genus Laniocera with the speckled mourner and the two form a superspecies. The cinereous mourner is monotypic.
Description
The cinereous mourner is long and weighs. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a thin orange ring around the eye. The rest of their head, upperparts, wings, and tail are mostly gray. Their primaries have a brown tinge and two rows of cinnamon spots that show as broken wing bars. Their tertials and the tips of their tail feathers have smaller cinnamon spots. Their underparts are a slightly paler gray than their upperparts. Their breast and crissum sometimes have black-tipped orange spots. They have pectoral tufts that are often hidden; in one variant the tufts are orange and in a second one they are pale yellow. Both variants have a dark iris, a dark bill, and gray legs.Nestlings of this species are orange with long filoplumes that end in white tips and have a resemblance to hairy caterpillars of a moth belonging to the family Megalopygidae. The young birds move their heads slowly from side to side which are thought to enhance the impression by resembling a moving caterpillar. It is thought that this may be the first case of Batesian mimicry involving a harmless bird mimic and a toxic insect model, although another species, the Brazilian laniisoma, also has young that share a similar downy appearance; however, detailed observations of the latter are unavailable.
Distribution and habitat
The cinereous mourner is found throughout the entire Orinoco River and Amazon River basins with a disjunct population in eastern Brazil. Its main range spans from southeastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru into northwestern Bolivia. From there it extends east across southern and eastern Venezuela and the Guianas and all of Amazonian Brazil. The isolated population is found in southeastern Bahia and northern Espírito Santo.The cinereous mourner primarily inhabits humid terra firme and igapó forest. It seems to favor sloping terrain and areas near ravines. In some areas it also occurs in forest on sandy soil and in woodlands in savanna. In elevation it occurs up to in Colombia, mostly up to in Ecuador, up to in Peru, and up to in Venezuela.