Nombre en español: Tangará Pecosa

Nombre en ingles: Speckled Tanager

Nombre científico: Ixothraupis guttata

Familia: Thraupidae

Foto: Alejandro Cartagena/Mary Torres/Daniel Orozco

Canto: Oscar Laverde

La tangara pintoja (Ixothraupis guttata), también denominada tángara pintada, tangará pecosa, tangara moteada o cebra, es una especie de ave paseriforme de la familia Thraupidae, que se encuentra en Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panamá, Trinidad y Tobago y Venezuela.

Hábitat

Vive en el nivel superior del bosque húmedo, áreas aledañas y claros con árboles y arbustos esparcidos, entre los 300 y 1.400 msnm.

Descripción

En promedio mide 13 cm de longitud y pesa 20 g. Presenta el plumaje del dorso negro con borde de color verde pasto brillante, que produce un aspecto de punteado negro. La grupa y los flancos son verdes y las plumas de las alas y la cola negras con bordes color azul celeste. El área loreal y la lista ocular son negras sobre cara amarilla. En la garganta, el pecho y el costado las plumas son negras en el centro con bordes entre azul pálido y blancuzco, y el vientre es blanco; las coberteras infracaudales son verde amarillentas y presentan manchas negras. La parte superior del pico es negra y la inferior es plateada con la punta negra. Las patas son gris azulado. La hembra tiene las marcas negras de la parte baja del pecho menos extensas y los bordes verdes de la parte superior más anchos y no bien definidos.

Alimentación

Se alimenta de bayas y de semillas ariladas y completa su dieta con insectos y arañas.

Reproducción

Su nido tiene forma de taza compacta, construida entre el follaje, con partes de hojas, entre 3 y 8 m de altura del suelo. La hembra pone dos huevos blancos con motas color marrón. La incubación dura treces y los pichones abandonan el nido quince días después de nacer.

Speckled tanager

The speckled tanager (Ixothraupis guttata) is a medium-sized passerine bird. It is a resident breeder in Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname and the extreme north of Brazil. There are also sight records from French Guiana.

It is probably a close relative of the spotted tanager (T. punctata) which replaces it to the south. These two species are generally presumably to be fully allopatric, but may actually be parapatric: in 1998 a speckled tanager was found in the Serranía de los Churumbelos (Colombia), just about 160 km (99 mi) north of where spotted tanagers are known to occur.

Adult speckled tanagers are 13.2 cm (5.2 in) long and weigh 18 g (0.63 oz). The upperparts are green with black spotting, and the face is yellow with a black line from the eye to the gape. The wings and tail are black edged with green, and the underparts are white spotted with black. The sexes are similar. The speckled tanager’s flight call is a weak metallic chirping tsip.

The Trinidadian subspecies T. g. trinitatis has brighter and more extensive yellow on the head, and the black spotting is more conspicuous.

T. guttata is more of a subtropical species than its relative and occurs in humid montane and secondary forest, with generally not very tall trees and a dense understory. Speckled tanagers are social birds which eat mainly fruit and some insects. They are often seen with bay-headed tanagers and honeycreepers.

The small cup nest is built in a tree and the normal clutch is two brown-blotched white eggs. The female incubates the eggs for 13 days to hatching, with another 15 days before the chicks fledge.

The Speckled Tanager is a charismatic, brightly colored member of the genus Tangara that is rarely found alone. This species usually travels in small family groups and joins larger mixed species flocks containing many other congeneric species. Found in southern Central American and northern South America, the Speckled Tanager is an active forager, eating mostly fruits and terrestrial arthropods in the high canopy while deftly flitting among the trees of humid primary and secondary forests.