Black Antshrike Thamnophilus nigriceps Scientific name definitions

The Black Antshrike forms a superspecies with Cocha Antshrike (Thamnophilus praecox), which is restricted to extreme northeast Ecuador. It is an almost uniformly black bird in males, while females are more characteristically plumaged, being rufous-brown above, with a blackish head to breast marked with buff-white shaft-streaks, and buff-colored posterior underparts. This antshrike is found in the understory and overgrown clearings of humid evergreen forest below 600 m, between eastern Panama and northern Colombia, south as far as Tolima in the Magdalena Valley. The Black Antshrike is poorly known, but it is usually observed in pairs or singles, which typically forage very close to the ground, and occasionally jerks the tail upwards in alarm.

16 cm; 23–24 g. Male is entirely black , except for dark grey flanks and white underwing-coverts and edges of flight-feathers below. Female has upperparts, wings and tail rufous-brown, head, throat and upper breast blackish-grey, becoming grey on lower breast and belly, buff on posterior underparts; head to belly with buff-white streaks varying in width individually as well as regionally, proportion of females with streaking narrow increases clinally from N to S, reaching extreme in S Magdalena Valley (“magdalenae”, streaks restricted to feather shafts). Subadult male is like adult female but with pale edgings on wing-coverts, black barring on posterior underparts; subadult female has broader streaking on anterior underparts.

E Panama (E Panamá Province, Darién) and N Colombia (N Chocó E to W La Guajira, and S in Magdalena Valley to Tolima).

Little recorded. Assumed to feed on insects and arthropods. Pairs or individuals forage in shrubby, viny thickets, mainly 1–2 m above ground but sometimes to 7 m, progressing by short hops, with pauses of up to several seconds to scan for prey. Jerks tail upwards when alarmed.

Loudsong a moderately long (e.g. 12 notes, 2·3 seconds), slightly accelerating, evenly pitched series of somewhat musical yet emphatic notes; also delivers similar notes in a more rapid, uncountable series introduced by firmly accented note. Calls include hollow, nasal note sometimes repeated, and nasal growl.