Bahia Tyrannulet

About the Bahia Tyrannulet

The Bahia tyrannulet (Phylloscartes beckeri) is an Endangered species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is endemic to the Brazilian states of Bahia and Minas Gerais. The Bahia tyrannulet is monotypic.

Gonzaga & Pacheco, who discovered and formally described the species, gave it its English name "because it is the only species of Phylloscartes known to be endemic to [the Bahia] area". They assigned the specific epithet beckeri to honor the Bahian biologist Johann Becker "in recognition of his long-standing interest in several fields of natural history".

The Bahia tyrannulet is the second to last of four species of genus Phylloscartes described in the late twentieth century. It was preceded by the Alagoas tyrannulet (P. ceciliae) in 1987 and the restinga tyrannulet (P. kronei) in 1992, and followed by the cinnamon-faced tyrannulet (P. parkeri) in 1997. The four were the first members of the genus described since the Minas Gerais tyrannulet (P. roquettei) in 1928, and as of late 2024 no others had been described.

The Bahia tyrannulet is about 12 cm (4.7 in) long and weighs 7.5 to 9 g (0.26 to 0.32 oz). The sexes... Wikipedia →