The dull-mantled antbird (Sipia laemosticta) is a perching bird species in the antbird family (Thamnophilidae).
Taxonomy
The dull-mantled antbird was described by the English naturalist Osbert Salvin in 1865 and given the binomial name Myrmeciza laemosticta. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2013 found that the genus Myrmeciza, as then defined, was polyphyletic. In the resulting rearrangement to create monophyletic genera four species, including the dull-mantled antbird were moved to the resurrected genus Sipia that had been introduced by the Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr in 1924.
The Magdalena antbird (S. palliata) was previously considered conspecific with the dull-mantled antbird but was elevated to species status based on an analysis of vocalisation and mitochondrial DNA sequences published in 2010.
The dull-mantled antbird is part of a group of species whose heads are uniformly grey, typically dark or even blackish, in males and females, only the throat being black – sometimes spotted white –, pale or (very rarely) brownish in some taxa. Without doubt, its closest living relative is the Esmeraldas antbird ("S." nigricauda), a sister species occurring to the southwest of the dull-mantled antbird's range. The stub-tailed antbird ("S." berlepschi) is a hypermelanic species whose close relationship to the preceding two is still quite obvious; the chestnut-backed antbird (Poliocrania exsul) and grey-headed antbird ("M." griseiceps) are somewhat more distantly related and uniquely apomorphic; still, they also have an almost completely grey head in both sexes.
Description
The dull-mantled antbird is long and weighs around . Overall, these birds look essentially blackish grey in the front half and dark reddish brown in the hind part, with a black wing-patch with white spots right where the two main colors meet. But in the dusky forest understory, the birds may appear all-black, with only the white spotting standing out.
The plumage of the male is blackish grey on the head, neck, upper mantle and on the underside up to the upper belly, and reddish brown on most of the remaining upperparts and underparts; remiges and rectrices are somewhat darker, with dark reddish brown edges. The throat is black, extending onto the breast as irregular black spotting. The primary coverts are tipped cinnamon and the secondary and tertiary coverts are black with white tips on the upperwing; the underwing coverts are all grey. As in many antbirds, there is a white patch between the shoulders; it has some black specks around it. The iris is red, the bill black, and the feet are lead-grey.
The female is similar but slightly lighter overall; its black throat color has many white spots and does not extend onto the breast. Its secondary coverts and sometimes the crown are tinged cinnamon.
The loudsong of the male consists of a rapid series of short but individually distinct notes, 8 per 1.8 seconds, the first three being slightly upslurred or flat, while the latter five are downslurred. Possibly, there is some geographic variation in the song, indication that the two subspecies might indeed be valid: the songs of the southern population apparently transitions smoothly between the two parts, while in northern birds, it seems that the first notes are all markedly upslurred, abruptly changing to the downslurred notes. The female loudsong resembles that of the male initially, being just raspier; the second part however consists of 2-4 short notes that successively become deeper and more muted. In mated couples, the male often sings first, followed immediately by the female.
The dull-mantled antbird also gives very short (0.1 to 0.2 seconds) downslurred burr as well as abrupt chip or chip-chip calls.
Ecology
Its natural habitat is tropical moist lowland forests, usually between 300–750 m ASL, but occasionally almost at sea level and sometimes up to 1,500 m ASL. It occurs in the understory and forest floor, and particularly frequents deep damp ravines in the foothills, in slopes next to streams, and in other areas that have a densely vegetated herbaceous understory.