#tapaculo

Ocellated Tapaculo (Acropternis orthonyx), family Rhinocryptidae, order Passeriformes, Ecuador

Truffles Aren't Just for Foodies—Some Birds Love Them, Too

A growing body of research shows that more species eat truffles than we realize, benefitting the mushrooms and the trees they grow on.

A few days into his trip, Smith started noticing the litter-laden forest floor disturbed in distinct patches. “It looked like someone took a rake and scattered the leaves,” he says. The light-colored bamboo leaves that usually sat at the top of the leaf litter stack lay dispersed, exposing the dark, decomposing litter below. “I thought that was super weird,” he says, wondering if an animal had made that mess while searching for insects and possibly even truffles in the soil underneath.

As he scraped off layers of dirt in one such disturbed patch, Smith heard a loud wet wet call five-feet-away: A Black-throated Huet-huet on the ground nearby curiously watched him dig. As Smith took his truffle-searching to the next patch, the huet-huet used its large claws to scratch and examine his earlier dig for food. “It would go wherever I had moved,” he says...

Read more: https://www.audubon.org/news/truffles-arent-just-foodies-some-birds-love-them-too

By Lars Petersson, all rights reserved

Etymology: Mouse Bird

First Described By: Chapman, 1915

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoromorpha, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostaylia, Ornithothoraces, Euornithes, Ornithuromorpha, Ornithurae, Neornithes, Neognathae, Neoaves, Inopinaves, Telluraves, Australaves, Eufalconimorphae, Psittacopasserae, Passeriformes, Eupasseres, Tyranni, Tyrannides, Furnariida, Rhinocryptidae

Status: Extant, Least Concern

Time and Place: Within the last 10,000 years, in the Holocene of the Quaternary 

The Ash-Colored Tapaculo is known from the West Coast of northern South America 

Physical Description: The Ash-Colored Tapaculo is a medium sized perching bird, about 14 centimeters long with the males slightly heavier than the females. They are dark grey all over, with the bellies and chests a lighter grey than the backs, and the wings and tails a darker grey overall still. They have darker grey patches on their cheeks and heads. They also have brown feathers on their butts! Their beaks are small and pointy, and also grey.

Diet: The Ash-Colored Tapaculo doesn’t actually have a documented diet.

Behavior: The Ash-Colored Tapaculo spends much of its time hopping and creeping through dense tangles of foliage, usually near the ground. They don’t migrate for food, but stay in the same range year-round. The males only give seasonal calls in the breeding season, usually piercing “tick” sounds, followed by repeated trills that increase in volume. They breed in June through August, usually only laying one clutch.

By Nick Athanas, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Ecosystem: These birds live only in bamboo thickets and cane in humid mountain forests, usually at high elevations - between 2000 and 4000 meters up.

Other: The Ash-Colored Tapaculo isn’t threatened with extinction, and despite its somewhat restricted range is actually quite common, especially in some protected areas. However, they are dependent on certain plants for their habitats, and thus are vulnerable to some extent.

~ By Meig Dickson

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