About Hypocnemoides maculicauda (Pelzeln, 1868)
The band-tailed antbird, Hypocnemoides maculicauda, is approximately 12 cm (4.7 in) long and weighs between 11.5 and 14.5 g (0.41 to 0.51 oz). Adult males have leaden gray upperparts, with a large but usually hidden white patch between their scapulars. Their tail is slate gray with wide white feather tips. Their flight feathers are leaden gray with lighter gray edges, and their wing coverts are black with gray and white edges. Males have a black throat, underparts that are mostly paler gray than the upperparts, and a white belly. Adult females share the same leaden gray upperparts as males; their throat and most of their underparts are white, their breast feathers have gray edges, their sides are gray, and the sides of their breast and belly have a very faint buff tinge. Both sexes have a gray iris and blue-gray legs and feet. Males have an entirely black bill, while females have a black maxilla and a gray mandible. Most sources place the band-tailed antbird’s range in the Amazon Basin, south of the Amazon River, extending from eastern Peru east through northern Bolivia and central Brazil to the Atlantic coast. However, the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society adds Colombia to the species’ range based on a 2020 publication, and Xeno-canto holds a single 2022 song recording of the species from extreme southern Colombia. The band-tailed antbird lives in lowland evergreen forest, almost exclusively in várzea forest along larger rivers, smaller watercourses, and lake edges. It prefers low vegetation that overhangs water.
