Description
After Cabanis (1870), Bauer et al. (2000), Venturini et al. (2005):
The upper side is ashy grey, with a darker back and a lighter top of the head. A wide black mask extends from the forehead across the eyes, nearly meeting again at the nape; a small white line runs above it, and thus the forehead appears white when seen from the front. The wings and the square-tipped tail are black, with blue iridescence on the primary and secondary wing-coverts, and a striped patch formed by the light grey outer web of the tertiary remiges, with the grey scapulars sometimes dropping over the wings to form a grey shoulder patch. The uppertail coverts are likewise black, quite long, and have white tips that may have a signal function as they are sometimes prominently presented by the birds. The belly is white, and the throat has a patch of cherry red that varies in extent, in some birds reaching onto the breast. The feet and toenails are dull pink, and the iris is dark yellow.
Males and females probably look much alike, though it may be that the latter have a smaller red throat patch on average. Juveniles apparently have the throat patch dull brown.
In the field, the Cherry-throated Tanager is only likely to be confused with the rather common Paroaria cardinal-tanagers which have a similar color pattern when seen from a distance. At close range however, the distribution of black in N. rourei's plumage is distinctive.
The type specimen is 14 cm (5,5 inch) long, with wings of 8,3 cm (3,25 in) and a tail of about 6 cm (2,4 in) length. Its bill is 1 cm (0,4 in) long along the ridge, 1,5 cm (0,6 in) long along the gape, and the tarsometatarsus (lower "leg") measures about 1,9 cm (0,75 in). A specimen banded in 1998 was smaller, at 12,5 cm (c. 5 in); its bill was 5,5 mm (0,22 in) high and 5 mm (0,2 in) wide and it weighed 22 g (0,78 oz).
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