Xenopsaris
| White-naped xenopsaris | |
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| Young white-naped xenopsaris at Santa Fe Province, Argentina | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Tityridae |
| Genus: |
Xenopsaris Ridgway, 1891 |
| Species: | X. albinucha |
| Binomial name | |
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Xenopsaris albinucha (Burmeister, 1869) |
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| Range in yellow | |
| Synonyms | |
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Pachyrhamphus albinucha protonym |
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Pachyrhamphus albinucha protonym
The white-naped xenopsaris (Xenopsaris albinucha), also known as the reed becard and white-naped becard, is a species of suboscine bird in the family Tityridae. It is the only species in the genus Xenopsaris. The white-naped xenopsaris is found in South America, in Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It lives in open woodland and other open forest habitats, and is mostly sedentary, though some populations may be migratory. The species, which is closely related to becards and tityras, was thought to be either a tyrant-flycatcher or cotinga, before it was placed in the Tityridae family.
The bird is 12.5 to 13 cm (4.9–5.1 in) in length, with whitish undersides, a black crown and grey-brown upperparts. The sexes are similar in appearance, though the females have duller upperparts. It feeds on insects in the foliage of trees and bushes, and sometimes on the ground. Nesting occurs in a simple cup nest placed in the fork of a tree. Both parents incubate the eggs and help feed the chicks. When the chicks fledge the parents may divide up the brood to continue helping. The species is not common and little is known about it, but it is not considered in danger of extinction, and has been classified as of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The white-naped xenopsaris was described in 1869 by the German-Argentine scientist Hermann Burmeister, based on a specimen collected near Buenos Aires. Burmeister originally placed it in the becard genus, Pachyramphus. It was moved to the monotypic genus Xenopsaris by Robert Ridgway in 1891, but it was still known to be closely related to Pachyramphus. A 1989 study of anatomy identified Pachyramphus as a sister taxon to Xenopsaris, but the white-naped xenopsaris was kept in its own genus due to several morphological and behavioural differences, namely its smaller size, the shape of its legs, the length of its primary flight feathers, the lack of strong sexual dimorphism (differences between the sexes) and the construction of the nest.
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Wikipedia