Black-headed Antbird

About the Black-headed Antbird

The black-headed antbird (Percnostola rufifrons) is a species of passerine bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

The black-headed antbird was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus rufifrons. The specific epithet rufifrons combines the Latin rufus meaning "red" or "rufous" with frons meaning "forehead" or "front". Gmelin based his description on "Le merle roux de Cayenne" that had been described and illustrated in 1775 by the French polymath the Comte de Buffon in his book Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.

The black-headed antbird is now placed together with the Allpahuayo antbird (P. arenarum) in genus Percnostola that was introduced in 1860 by Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine. The white-lined antbird (Myrmoborus lophotes) was originally placed in Percnostola but following a 2013 study was moved to its present genus.

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