South American Leaftosser

About the South American Leaftosser

The dusky leaftosser or South American leaftosser (Sclerurus obscurior) is a bird in subfamily Sclerurinae, the leaftossers and miners, of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Giana, Guyana, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

The dusky leaftosser's taxonomy is unsettled. The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS), the International Ornithological Committee (IOC), and the Clements taxonomy assign it these five subspecies:

S. o. andinus Chapman, 1914 S. o. obscurior Hartert, 1901 S. o. peruvianus Chubb, C, 1919 S. o. macconnelli Chubb, C, 1919 S. o. bahiae Chubb, C, 1919 The North American Classification Committee of the AOS and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) retain an older treatment. They place these subspecies within S. mexicanus, which they respectively call the Middle American leaftosser and the tawny-throated leaftosser.

This article treats the dusky leaftosser as a species with five subspecies. The dusky leaftosser is 15 to 17 cm (5.9 to 6.7 in) long and weighs 20 to 30 g (0.71 to 1.1 oz). The... Wikipedia →