The white-banded tyrannulet (Mecocerculus stictopterus) is a species of bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The white-banded tyrannulet has three subspecies, the nominate M. s. stictopterus (Sclater, PL, 1859), M. s. albocaudatus (Phelps, WH & Gilliard, 1941), and M. s. taeniopterus (Cabanis, 1874).
Description
The white-banded tyrannulet is 12.5 to 13 cm (4.9 to 5.1 in) long and weighs 8 to 11 g (0.28 to 0.39 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a medium gray crown. They have a white supercilium, a blackish stripe through the eye, and a faint dusky crescent behind the ear coverts on an otherwise whitish face. Their upperparts are dark brownish olive. Their wings are dark dusky with bright yellow to ochraceous edges on the flight feathers. Their wing coverts have wide pure white tips that show as two bars on the closed wing. Their tail is dusky olive. Their throat is grayish white, their breast grayish white with a darker grayish wash, their belly whitish, and their undertail coverts pale yellow. Subspecies M. s. albocaudatus differs from the nominate only by having dull buffy white outermost tail feathers. M. s. taeniopterus has a paler gray crown, slightly lighter greener and less brown upperparts, and a paler gray wash on the breast than the nominate. Both sexes of all subspecies have a brown iris, a long thin black bill with a dull pinkish base to the mandible, and gray legs and feet.
Distribution and habitat
The nominate subspecies of the white-banded tyrannulet is found from the Colombian Andes south through Ecuador on both slopes of the Andes and on the western slope into the northern Peru departments of Piura, Cajamarca, and Amazonas. Subspecies M. s. albocaudatus is found in the Andes of western Venezuela's Trujillo, Mérida, and Táchira states. M. s. taeniopterus is found on the eastern slope of the Andes...
