Marble-faced bristle tyrant
The marble-faced bristle tyrant is a species of passerine bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The marble-faced bristle tyrant was originally described as Pogonotriccus ophthalmicus. That genus was later merged into genus Phylloscartes. Beginning in 2016 taxonomic systems resurrected Pogonotriccus for this species and a few others.The marble-faced bristle-tyrant has three subspecies, the nominate P. o. ophthalmicus, P. o. ottonis, and P. o. purus. P. o. ottonis had been treated as a separate species by some early authors.
Description
The marble-faced bristle tyrant is about long and weighs. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a slate-gray crown, white lores, and a white supercilium on an otherwise gray and white grizzled face. Their ear coverts are white to very pale yellow with a black crescent at the rear. Their back and rump are bright yellow-olive. Their wings are dusky with pale olive-yellow to yellow edges on the flight feathers. Their wing coverts are dusky with pale olive-yellow to yellow tips that show as two wing bars. Their tail is dusky olive. Their throat is grizzled whitish; the rest of their underparts are bright yellow with a heavy darkish olive wash on the breast. Subspecies P. o. ottonis has pale yellow wing bars, a grayish white throat and upper breast with a pale olive wash, and white to very pale yellow lower breast and belly. P. o. purus has a brighter yellow face, more prominent wing bars, and brighter yellow underparts than the nominate. All the subspecies have a brown iris, a black bill with sometimes a paler mandible, and gray legs and feet.Distribution and habitat
The marble-faced bristle tyrant has a disjunct distribution. Subspecies P. o. purus is the northernmost. It is found in the mountains of Venezuela's Yaracuy and southern Aragua states and in the coastal mountains from Carabobo through Aragua into the Federal District. The nominate subspecies is found in Colombia's Central and Western Andes, on the western slope of the Andes in northwestern Ecuador south to Pichincha Province, on the eastern slope through length of Ecuador slightly into northern Peru, and on the eastern slope in Peru from southern Amazonas Department south to Ayacucho Department. P. o. ottonis is found from Cuzco and Madre de Dios departments in southeastern Peru south into Bolivia as far as Santa Cruz Department.The marble-faced bristle tyrant inhabits humid montane forest in the subtropical zone. There it favors mid-elevation cloudforest heavy with mosses. It occurs mostly in the forest interior but does venture into clearings and the forest edges. In elevation it occurs between in Venezuela, between in Colombia,
between in Ecuador, and between in Peru.