Watkins's antpitta (Grallaria watkinsi) is a Near Threatened species of bird in the family Grallariidae. It is found in Ecuador and Peru.
Taxonomy and systematics
Watkins's antpitta was originally described as a species. It was later regarded as a subspecies of the chestnut-crowned antpitta (G. ruficapilla) but on the basis of a 1995 publication it was returned to full species status.
The species' English name and specific epithet commemorate the English collector Henry George Watkins, who collected the first specimens in Peru. The two form a superspecies.
Watkins's antpitta is monotypic.
Description
Grallaria antpittas are a "wonderful group of plump and round antbirds whose feathers are often fluffed up...they have stout bills very short tails". Watkins's antpitta is about 18 cm (7.1 in) long and weighs 58 to 84 g (2.0 to 3.0 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a pale rufous crown and nape, with thin whitish streaks on both and black spots on the forecrown. They have white lores, a white ring around the eye, pale olive upper ear coverts, and white lower ear coverts with thin olive streaks. Their back and tail are pale olive with some white streaks on the lower back. Their flight feathers are pale olive or pale tawny brown and their wing coverts pale olive. Their throat is white with thin dusky olive stripes on the side. The center of their breast is white or whitish buff with dusky streaks, the rest of their breast and their sides white with dusky olive streaks, and the center of their belly, their vent, and their undertail coverts unstreaked white. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a blackish maxilla, a pale pinkish gray mandible, and pinkish to pale horn legs and feet.
Distribution and habitat
Watkins's antpitta is found in Loja and El Oro provinces in southwestern Ecuador and Tumbes and Piura departments adjoining them in Peru. There is also an isolated population in the Cordillera de Colonche further north in Ecuador's Manabí and Guayas provinces. The...
