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Scytalopus
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Santa Marta Tapaculo Scytalopus sanctaemartae Scientific name definitions

Niels Krabbe and Thomas S. Schulenberg
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Text last updated January 1, 2003

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Originally Appeared in

HBW Alive

Introduction

The Santa Marta Tapaculo is a range-restricted songbird endemic to northern Colombia. Found only in the Santa Marta Mountains of Colombia, the species inhabits undergrowth of montane humid forest between 1350 and 1700 meters in elevation. It is largely medium gray with a small white coronal patch, brown-marked rufous lower flanks, crissum, and rump. Santa Marta Tapaculo used to be considered a subspecies of Rufous-vented Tapaculo; however, the Santa Marta Tapaculo is smaller and paler gray than the wider-ranging Rufous-vented. This tapaculo’s song is a long, rapid trill.

Field Identification

11 cm. A fairly pale tapaculo with small white crown spot, barred brown flanks, fairly short tail and slender bill. Male has crown and back medium grey, white spot on centre of crown, sometimes brown wash on nape; rump tawny, barred black, uppertail-coverts less distinctly barred; wings grey, remiges tipped rusty and buff, tail dark brown; throat and breast grey (paler than back), centre of belly almost white or scalloped white, flanks and crissum rusty, barred black; iris dark brown; bill black or blackish; tarsus pale horn-brown to dark brown. Female usually has only trace of white crown patch, has upperparts washed with brown, remiges more strongly brown and barred black, and is paler below. Juvenile is heavily barred and scaled, like juvenile of S. atratus but much less rusty, especially on throat and breast.

Systematics History

Previously treated as a race of S. femoralis. Monotypic.

Subspecies

Monotypic.

Distribution

Santa Marta Mts (N Colombia).

Habitat

Dark tangled ravines and undergrowth in dense humid forest, at 900–1700 m.

Movement

Probably sedentary.

Diet and Foraging

No information available. Mainly terrestrial.

Sounds and Vocal Behavior

Song 14–15 seconds long, a rapid trill of upstroke and downstroke notes, pace accelerating from 14–17 per second at start to 18–22 at end, pitch over first 2 seconds rising from 3·2 to 3·6–4 kHz, then falling gradually to end at 3·2–3·4 kHz (first overtone; fundamental and sometimes second overtone almost as loud). Call a sharp squeak at 6 kHz, repeated every 2–4 seconds for minutes on end.

Breeding

Juvenile collected in Jul. No other information.

Conservation Status

Conservation status on Birdlife NT Near Threatened
Not globally threatened. Little information available on relative numbers, but species is apparently not rare. Occurs in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park.
Distribution of the Santa Marta Tapaculo - Range Map
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  • Year-round
  • Migration
  • Breeding
  • Non-Breeding
Distribution of the Santa Marta Tapaculo

eBird and Macaulay Library

Recommended Citation

Krabbe, N. and T. S. Schulenberg (2020). Santa Marta Tapaculo (Scytalopus sanctaemartae), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.samtap1.01
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