About Turdus serranus Tschudi, 1844
The glossy-black thrush (Turdus serranus Tschudi, 1844) is 23 to 25 cm (9.1 to 9.8 in) long and weighs 70 to 90 g (2.5 to 3.2 oz). This species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males of the nominate subspecies T. s. serranus are almost entirely glossy black with a yellow eye-ring and yellow bill. Adult females have dark olive-brown heads and upperparts, slightly paler, redder underparts, a brownish bill, and no eye-ring. Both sexes have yellow legs and feet. Juvenile males have dark sooty brown upperparts and juvenile females have warm brown upperparts; both juveniles have buff spots and streaks, and mottled buff and dark underparts. Subspecies T. s. cumanensis males are dark chocolate-brown with rufous-brown edges on their wing feathers, while females of this subspecies have medium brown upperparts and deep sooty-gray underparts. Males of T. s. atrosericeus are identical in appearance to nominate males; females of this subspecies have pale olive-brown upperparts and grayish brown underparts. Males of T. s. fuscobrunneus are also identical in appearance to nominate males; females are uniform dark brown with a thin orange-yellow eye-ring. Subspecies T. s. continoi is very similar in appearance to T. s. fuscobrunneus. The subspecies of the glossy-black thrush have the following distributions: T. s. cumanensis is found in the mountains of Anzoátegui, Sucre, and Monagas states in northeastern Venezuela. T. s. atrosericeus occurs in the Venezuelan Coastal Range from Carabobo to Miranda, Serranía de Perijá on the Venezuela-Colombia border, and the Andes from Lara in Venezuela south into Colombia's Eastern Andes. T. s. fuscobrunneus lives in Colombia's Central and Western Andes, and extends south along both slopes of the Andes through Ecuador, and along the western slope slightly into northwestern Peru. The nominate subspecies T. s. serranus ranges along the eastern slope of the Andes from San Martín Department in northern Peru south through Bolivia. T. s. continoi is found in Jujuy and Salta provinces in northwestern Argentina. The glossy-black thrush primarily inhabits the interior of a variety of humid to wet subtropical and temperate zone landscapes, including montane forest, cloudforest, and mature secondary forest. It also occurs in dry forest in northwestern Peru. Its elevation range varies by location: between 950 and 2,900 m (3,100 and 9,500 ft) in Venezuela, between 1,400 and 3,000 m (4,600 and 9,800 ft) in Colombia, and mostly between 1,500 and 2,800 m (4,900 and 9,200 ft) in Ecuador. In northwestern Peru it occurs between 1,200 and 2,900 m (3,900 and 9,500 ft), and along the eastern Andes slope it ranges from 1,400 to 3,450 m (4,600 and 11,300 ft), mostly between 1,800 and 3,000 m (5,900 and 9,800 ft).
