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Lance-tailed Manakin | Chiroxiphia lanceolata
Lancetmanakin | Saltarín lanceolado
The Lance-tailed Manakin is a Chiroxiphia manakin of drier forest and second growth, mainly on the Pacific slope of Panama. The male is black with a sky-blue back, a red crown and two pointed central tail feathers. Two males perform a joint dance on a branch. In the guide area it lives in south-western Costa Rica and Panama.
Voice
A loud, clear dee-o or dee-yo, often repeated and sung by two males in turn or almost together. Also a nasal nyaa and buzzing and clicking notes during the dance.
Recording: Hernán Arias — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm. The two central tail feathers are pointed and project a few centimetres beyond the rest of the tail. Male black with a sky-blue mantle, a bright red crown and orange legs. Female olive-green, paler below, with the same pointed central tail feathers and orange legs; older females sometimes show some red on the crown. Young males are olive-green, first with a red crown, and then gradually acquire black and blue.
Confusion species
The male Long-tailed Manakin Chiroxiphia linearis (Pacific slope from Mexico to Costa Rica) has much longer, wire-like central tail feathers; the two species meet at most in southern Costa Rica. Females of other manakins have a rounded tail and mostly dark or grey legs.
Habitat
Dry and semi-humid deciduous forest, gallery forest and dense second growth, mainly in the understorey, from sea level to about 1500 m; also in more humid forest in the Canal area. It eats small fruits and insects. Two, sometimes three males form a fixed team and dance together on a low, horizontal branch, leapfrogging over each other in turn in a rapid, circling movement. Only the dominant male mates.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Pacific slope of extreme south-western Costa Rica and above all of Panama, east to Darién and on the Azuero Peninsula; on the Caribbean slope locally in the Canal area and Colón. Outside the guide area in northern Colombia and northern Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common in Parque Natural Metropolitano in Panama City and in the dry forest of the Azuero Peninsula. The repeated dee-o gives the males away; then search low in dense forest for the dance perch.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in dry and secondary forest and tolerates some disturbance; fragmentation of dry forest on the Pacific slope is continuing.
Scientific name
Chiroxiphia lanceolata | (Wagler, 1830)
Wagler described the species in 1830 as Pipra lanceolata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chiroxiphia was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Chiroxiphia is Greek, from kheir 'hand' and xiphos 'sword', after the narrow, sword-shaped outer primaries of the males. lanceolata is Latin for 'lance-shaped', after the pointed, elongated central tail feathers. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Turumiquire, Sucre, Venezuela.