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Yellow-green Brushfinch | Atlapetes luteoviridis
Geelgroene struikgors | Cerquero verdiamarillo
The Yellow-green Brushfinch is an olive-green brushfinch with a blackish head and yellow thighs that occurs only in a small area in the mountains of western Panama. It lives in pairs or small groups in the undergrowth and along the edges of montane rainforest. Like Yellow-thighed Brushfinch, it was formerly placed in the genus Pselliophorus.
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Voice
The call is a high, thin tseet. The song is a series of high, squeaky notes and short trills, similar to that of Yellow-thighed Brushfinch.
Recording: Guy Kirwan — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
17–19 cm. Head blackish, merging into olive-green on the nape. Upperparts, wings and tail dark olive-green. Underparts yellowish green to olive-yellow, brightest on the throat and breast. Thighs with fluffy, bright yellow feathers. Bill black, eye dark. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Yellow-thighed Brushfinch Atlapetes tibialis also has yellow thighs but is mainly dark slate-grey, with no green or yellow below; it lives further west and higher, in Chiriquí and Costa Rica. Chestnut-capped Brushfinch Arremon brunneinucha has a chestnut crown, a white throat and a black breast band. Common Chlorospingus Chlorospingus flavopectus is smaller, with a white spot behind the eye and a thinner bill.
Habitat
Undergrowth, edges and clearings of humid montane rainforest and foothill forest, mostly between about 1000 and 1800 m. It forages low in the vegetation for insects and small fruits, sometimes in mixed feeding flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to Panama and thus to the guide area: mountains in the west of the country, mainly in Veraguas (Cerro Tute and the Santa Fe area) and adjacent eastern Chiriquí and the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé (including Cerro Colorado).
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best site is the Santa Fe area in Veraguas, especially the road to Alto de Piedra and Santa Fe National Park, where it forages in the undergrowth along forest edges and clearings.
Conservation status
Vulnerable (VU). Very small range; threatened by the loss of montane forest to deforestation, agriculture and mining.
Scientific name
Atlapetes luteoviridis | (Griscom, 1924)
Griscom described the species in 1924 as Pselliophorus luteoviridis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Atlapetes was introduced in 1831 by Wagler. Atlapetes combines the Titan Atlas of Greek myth, who was turned into a mountain, with Greek petēs 'flier': a 'mountain flier', after the montane habitat. luteoviridis is Latin, from luteus 'yellow' and viridis 'green', after the yellow-green plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Flores, Chiriquí, Panama.