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Black-faced Antthrush | Formicarius analis
Zwartkeelmierlijster | Hormiguero cholino cara negra
The Black-faced Antthrush is a brown ground bird of humid lowland forest that walks over the forest floor like a small rail, tail cocked. Its clear, whistled song is one of the familiar sounds of the rainforest of southern Central America. In the guide area it lives from Honduras to Panama.
Voice
The song is a clear, drawn-out whistle followed by a few shorter, descending whistles, like tyooo, tu-tu-tu. It often responds to a whistled imitation. When alarmed a sharp chuk.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
17–19 cm, with a compact, rounded build, fairly long legs and a short tail that is often held up. Upperparts brown, side of the neck and nape rufous. Lores, cheek and throat black; a conspicuous bare bluish-white ring around the eye. Breast and belly grey, flanks browner, undertail coverts rufous. Bill black. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Mayan Antthrush Formicarius moniliger (south-eastern Mexico to Honduras) is very similar and is best separated by song. Black-headed Antthrush Formicarius nigricapillus has an all-black head and breast and lives mainly higher up, in the foothills. Rufous-breasted Antthrush Formicarius rufipectus has a rufous breast and lives in montane forest.
Habitat
Floor and undergrowth of humid lowland and foothill forest, also mature secondary forest; mostly below about 1000 m. It walks quietly over the leaf litter, picking up insects, spiders and other invertebrates, sometimes at army-ant swarms. It nests in a cavity in a tree trunk or stump.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From Honduras through Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama, mainly on the Caribbean slope and in Panama on both slopes. Outside the guide area over much of northern South America, into Amazonia. Exactly where this species meets Mayan Antthrush is not yet well known.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Often heard at La Selva in Costa Rica and along Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) in Panama. Standing still near a singing bird sometimes brings a view of it walking calmly across the trail.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Fairly common in humid lowland forest; declines where forest disappears or becomes highly fragmented.
Scientific name
Formicarius analis | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 as Myothera analis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Formicarius was introduced in 1783 by Boddaert. Formicarius is Latin, from formica 'ant' with the suffix -arius: 'ant-bird'. analis is Latin for 'of the vent', after the rufous undertail coverts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Yuracarés and Chiquitos, Bolivia.