Rufous-throated antbird
The rufous-throated antbird is a species of bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found in Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The rufous-throated antbird was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1775 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 Turdus rufigula in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The rufous-throated antbird is now placed in the genus Gymnopithys that was introduced by the French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1857 with the rufous-throated antbird as the type species. The name Gymnopithys combines the Ancient Greek gumnos meaning "bare" or "naked" with the name of the antbird genus Pithys that was erected by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1818. The specific epithet rufigula combines the Latin words rufus "red" and gula "throat". The rufous-throated antbird shares genus Gymnopithys with the bicolored antbird and white-throated antbird.The rufous-throated antbird has three subspecies, the nominate G. r. rufigula, G. r. pallidus, and G. r. pallidigula.
Description
The rufous-throated antbird is long and weighs. Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a brownish black forehead and lores, an olive-brown crown and nape, and bare blue skin around the eye. Their back and rump are olive-brown with a hidden white patch between the scapulars. Their wings and tail are dark yellow-brown. Their cheeks and upper throat are rufous-chestnut, their lower throat and upper breast cinnamon, and their sides, flanks, and belly olive-brown. Adult females are duller than males and their intrascapular patch is cinnamon. Subspecies G. r. pallidigula has a paler throat and belly center and a more ochraceous breast than the nominate. G. r. pallidus resembles pallidigula with a paler and more olivaceous back. The subspecies are so similar that they may represent clinal variation.Distribution and habitat
The rufous-throated antbird is a species of the Guianan Shield. The nominate subspecies is the most widespread. It is found from the drainage of the Rio Cuyuní in extreme eastern Venezuela east through the Guianas and in northern Brazil east of the Rio Negro and north of the Amazon. Subspecies G. r. pallidus is found in southern Venezuela's Bolívar state except for the Cuyuní drainage and in Amazonas state except for the vicinity of Pica Yavita-Pimichín. G. r. pallidigula has a limited range near Pica Yavita-Pimichín in extreme southern Venezuela's Amazonas state.The rufous-throated antbird primarily inhabits humid lowland and foothill terra firme evergreen forest. It almost entirely remains in the forest undergrowth and seldom enters open areas or crosses streams and roads. In elevation it occurs below in most of its range but is found locally as high as.