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Crimson-backed Tanager | Ramphocelus dimidiatus
Roodbuiktangare | Tangara dorsirroja
The Crimson-backed Tanager is a dark red tanager with black wings and tail and a silvery-white lower mandible. Small groups are common in gardens, scrub and along forest edges in Panama. In the guide area it occurs only in Panama.
Voice
The call is a sharp chek or chip. The song consists of slow, whistled phrases such as chee-weet, often repeated at dawn.
Recording: Oscar Laverde — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
16–17 cm. A medium-sized tanager with a thick bill whose lower mandible is enlarged and silvery-white in the male. The male has a dark maroon to almost blackish-red head, throat, breast and upper back, a bright crimson lower back, rump and belly, and black wings and tail. The female is duller: dark reddish-brown with a brighter red rump and belly and a dark bill.
Confusion species
Scarlet-rumped Tanager Ramphocelus passerinii (western Panama) is largely black with only a red rump. The male Crimson-collared Tanager Ramphocelus sanguinolentus (western Panama) has a black face and a black belly. Red tanagers of the genus Piranga have a different bill and no dark red head.
Habitat
Forest edges, scrub, gardens, parks, plantations, pastures with trees and mangrove edges, from sea level to about 1200 m; mainly in the drier Pacific lowlands. It avoids closed forest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in Panama, mainly on the Pacific slope from Chiriquí eastwards, on the Caribbean slope in the central part, and on the Pearl Islands and Coiba. Outside the guide area in northern and western Colombia and north-western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common in gardens and parks of Panama City and along the roads around the Panama Canal, for example in the Metropolitan Natural Park.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Common and benefits from open country, gardens and forest edges.
Scientific name
Ramphocelus dimidiatus | de Lafresnaye, 1837
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Ramphocelus was introduced in 1805 by Desmarest, A-G. Ramphocelus is Greek, from rhamphos 'bill' and koilos 'hollow, concave', after the conspicuous silvery lower mandible. dimidiatus is Latin for 'halved', after the two-part plumage: dark maroon in front, bright red on rump and belly. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cartagena, Colombia.