Fork-tailed tody-tyrant
species of bird

The fork-tailed tody-tyrant or fork-tailed pygmy tyrant (Hemitriccus furcatus) is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is endemic to Brazil.
Taxonomy and systematics
The fork-tailed tody-tyrant was originally described in 1846 as Todirostrum furcatum. During part of the twentieth century some authors placed it by itself in genus Ceratotriccus, which by about 1980 was merged into Hemitriccus. Its closest relative appears to be Kaempfer's tody-tyrant (H. kaempferi).
The fork-tailed tody-tyrant is monotypic.
Description
The fork-tailed tody-tyrant is about 11 cm (4.3 in) long. Adults have a distinctive tail whose outer feathers are longer than the inner ones and curve slightly inwards; males' tails are somewhat more deeply forked than females'. The sexes otherwise have the same plumage. They have a bright cinnamon-brown forehead and a brownish olive crown and nape.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q915434. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1846 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fork-tailed tody-tyrant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.