Red-crowned Ant-Tanager
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| Habia rubica (Vieillot, 1817) |
The Red-crowned Ant-Tanager, Habia rubica, is a medium-sized passerine bird. This tanager is a resident breeder from Mexico south to Paraguay and northern Argentina, and on Trinidad.
It occurs in forest undergrowth. The shallow cup nest is usually built in a sapling or tree fern near a stream, and the normal clutch is two brown-blotched white eggs. The female incubates the eggs for 13 days to hatching, with about ten days more before the chicks fledge.
Red-crowned Ant-Tanagers are 18 cm long and weigh 34 g (male) or 31 g (female). Adult males are dull reddish brown with a brighter red throat and breast. The black-bordered scarlet crown stripe is raised when the bird is excited. The female is yellowish brown, with a yellow throat and yellow-buff crown stripe.
These birds are found in pairs or family groups. They eat mainly arthropods, but berries are also taken. In Central America and Trinidad they frequently attend army ant columns, and in the lowland forests of Southeastern Brazil they are a nuclear species of understory mixed species feeding flocks.
The Red-crowned Ant-Tanager is a shy but noisy bird. Its call is a rattle followed by a musical pee-pee-pee.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Habia rubica. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Birds of Venezuela by Hilty, ISBN 0-7136-6418-5
- Birds of Trinidad and Tobago by ffrench, ISBN 0-7136-6759-1
