Panama flycatcher
The Panama flycatcher is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Venezuelan flycatcher was originally described as a species with its current binomial Myiarchus panamensis. In 1918 it was reclassified as a subspecies Myiarchus ferox, then called the Guiana flycatcher and now the short-crested flycatcher. That treatment lasted until late in the century when it was again recognized as a distinct species. A molecular genetic study published in 2020 found that the Panama flycatcher is sister to the short-crested flycatcher.The Panama flycatcher has two subspecies, the nominate M. p. panamensis and M. p. actiosus.
Description
The Panama flycatcher is long and weighs about. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a grayish olive crown and upperparts. The crown has a slight crest and is slightly darker in the center, giving a streaked effect. Their face is otherwise gray. Their wings are mostly grayish olive with pale whitish yellow outer webs on the tertials. Their tail is brown with slightly paler outer vanes on the outermost pair of feathers. Their throat and breast are gray and their belly and undertail coverts are yellow with a greenish wash on the upper flanks. Subspecies M. p. actiosus has grayer upperparts and a paler belly than the nominate. Both subspecies have a dark iris, a dark bill with often a paler base to the mandible, and dark legs and feet. Juveniles of both subspecies have rufous edges on the wing coverts and tail feathers.Distribution and habitat
Subspecies M. p. actiosus of the Panama flycatcher is the more northerly of the two and has a far smaller range. It is found on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica from the Gulf of Nicoya south almost to the Osa Peninsula. The nominate subspecies is found from extreme southwestern Costa Rica through Panama on the Pacific slope and from Bocas del Toro Province on the Caribbean slope. It also occurs on most of the islands off the Pacific coast of Panama. Its range continues into Colombia where in the west it extends the length of the country south on the Pacific slope and slightly into northwestern Ecuador. Its range crosses northern Colombia into the Maricaibo Basin in northwestern Venezuela and extends south in Colombia into the lower valley of the Cauca River and to the upper Magdalena River valley.The Panama flycatcher's subspecies M. p. actiosus inhabits only coastal mangroves. The nominate subspecies inhabits a variety of landscapes including tropical deciduous forest, gallery forest and secondary forest. It also occurs in mangroves and somewhat open habitats such as woodlands and pastures with scattered shrubs. In elevation it ranges overall from sea level to but reaches only in Colombia and in Venezuela.