Description
The Variable Antshrike is a thickset bird with a total length of approximately 14–16 cm (5.5–6.3 in). The male has black wings with grey edging to the remiges (sometimes very narrow, and barely visible in the subspecies where the males are primarily black), and white wing-bars that may appear spotty, especially on the lesser wing coverts. The tail is black with white tips (best visible from below). In the eastern, central and southern subspecies, the chest and most of the head are grey, the back is grey with variable amounts of black (may be almost entirely black), a semi-concealed white interscapular patch, and the crown is black (black crown reduced in far north-eastern Brazil). The variation in the colour of the belly and crissum is highly complex, ranging from white in some subspecies, over grey in others, to deep cinnamon. The male of the western subspecies melanochrous from the Andes of Peru is strikingly different, being overall black except for the white in its wings and tail. The male of the subspecies aspersiventer of the Andes in north-western Bolivia and adjacent Peru approaches melanochrous in colour, but has dense white barring to the belly.
Females are equally variable. In most of this species range, their wings are blackish-brown with rufescent edging to the remiges, and white or buff wing-bars (often appears rather spotty). In north-eastern Brazil, however, the wing-bars are greatly reduced, and, in the population in Ceará, to the extend where it essentially is lacking. The tail resembles that of the males, but is often more brownish. The underparts are rich orange-cinnamon, in a few subspecies extending as far up as the chest, but in most the chest is pale brownish or grey. The back is brown and the head is pure grey or pale grey tinged brown, while most subspecies have a brown crown, which, however, is black in parts of central Brazil and in the Andean subspecies melanochrous and aspersiventer. Both sexes of all subspecies have grey legs and a stubby bill that is grey below, blackish above. Some subspecies are easily confused with the slaty antshrikes, but these differ consistently in their broad white edging to the tertials.
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