Rufous-capped antthrush
species of bird
The rufous-capped antthrush (Formicarius colma) is a small species of bird in the family Formicariidae located in the order Passeriformes.
It is considered to be uncommon but widespread, found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
The rufous-capped antthrush is typically found inhabiting the shady floor of tall, humid forests on solid ground, and is occasionally spotted in transitional forests (várzea) and savanna forests (Suriname).
Taxonomy and systematics
The rufous-capped antthrush was first described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his 1779 journal Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (Natural History, General and Particular, with a Description of the King's Cabinet) from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana and was further engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle (Illuminated Planks of Natural History) which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither Buffon's description nor Martinet's drawing included a scientific name, however, Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Formicarius colma (Formicarius being Latin for "of the ant") in his 1783 catalogue the Planches Enluminées, with the specific epithet colma forged by Buffon, most likely being a contraction of "collier" (necklace) and "marque" (mark).
There are four recognized subspecies of Formicarius:
F. c. colma (Boddaert, 1783) – found in east Colombia, south Venezuela, the Guianas and north Brazil (north of the Amazon);
F. c. nigrifrons (Gould, 1855) – found in east Ecuador, east Peru, north Bolivia and southwest Amazonian Brazil;
F. c. amazonicus (Hellmayr, 1902) – found in central Brazil;
F. c. ruficeps (von Spix, 1824) – found in east, southeast and south Brazil.
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