White-bellied tody-tyrant
The white-bellied tody-tyrant is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru.
Taxonomy and systematics
The white-bellied tody-tyrant has two subspecies, the nominate H. g. griseipectus and H. g. naumburgae.The species had a complicated taxonomic history from its original description to late in the twentieth century. It was described as Euscarthmus griseipectus. It was later moved to genus Idioptilon, and later still both Euscarthmus and Idioptilon were merged into Hemitriccus. What is now the white-eyed tody-tyrant was for a time treated as conspecific with the white-bellied. A few authors have treated naumburgae as a subspecies of the white-eyed tody-tyrant but that assignment has not been widely accepted.
Description
The white-bellied tody-tyrant is long and weighs. The sexes and the subspecies have essentially the same plumage. Adults have an olive-green crown and nape. They have gray lores, an indistinct white eye-ring, and light gray ear coverts. Their back and rump are olive-green. Their wings are dusky with pale yellow edges on the flight feathers and pale yellow tips on the coverts; the latter show as two distinct wing bars. Their tail is olive-green. Their throat is whitish with faint gray streaks, their breast is very light gray with some white streaking and a yellow tinge on its sides, their belly is whitish, and their flanks and undertail coverts are pale yellow. Both subspecies have a nearly white to pale straw or light yellowish gray iris, a black bill with sometimes a pinkish base to the mandible, and light grayish legs and feet.Distribution and habitat
The white-bellied tody-tyrant has a disjunct distribution. The nominate subspecies has by far the larger range throughout the central Amazon Basin south of the Amazon. In Peru it is found well east of the Andes from southern Loreto Department south to Cuzco and Puno departments, though only very locally in the northern and central parts of that range. It is found from Peru into northern Bolivia and across Brazil east to the Tocantins River. Subspecies H. g. naumburgae is found in a small area of northeastern Brazil between the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Alagoas.The white-bellied tody-tyrant's nominate subspecies inhabits a variety of humid forest types both primary and secondary. These include terra firme, the transition forest between terra firme and igapó, cloudforest, and campinarana. Subspecies H. g. naumburgae inhabits gallery forest and dense humid forest. In both areas it occurs mostly in the forest's lower and mid-levels and sometimes to the subcanopy.