The
red-throated ant tanager (
Driophlox fuscicauda) is a medium-sized passerine bird. This species is a resident breeder on the Caribbean slopes from southeastern Mexico to eastern Panama. It was formerly placed with the red-crowned ant tanager in the genus
Habia. It was usually considered an aberrant kind of tanager and placed in the Thraupidae, but is actually closer to the cardinals (Cardinalidae). Consequently, it can be argued that referring to the members of this genus as ant tanagers is misleading, but no other common name has gained usage.
Red-throated ant tanagers are 19 cm long and weigh 40 g. Adult males are dull dusky red, somewhat paler below, and with a bright red throat and central crown. The female is brownish olive, paler and greyer below, and with a yellow throat and small dull yellow crown stripe. Young birds are brown and lack the throat and crown patches.
Both sexes of this species are duller and darker than the related red-crowned ant tanager which occurs on the Pacific slope in its Central American range.
It occurs in thick undergrowth at the edge of forest, second growth or abandoned plantations at altitudes from sea level to 600 m. The large but untidy cup nest is usually built high in the fork of a shrub or tree, and is often decorated with living ferns. The normal clutch is two or three white eggs laid from April to June.
These birds are found in pairs or small groups. They eat insects, arthropods and fruit like those of
Cymbopetalum mayanum (Annonaceae), and less often
Trophis racemosa (Moraceae), and will follow army ant columns especially in lowlands where antbirds are uncommon. The flock will give a defensive spread-wing-and-tail display to deter potential predators.
Six subspecies are recognised:
- D. f. salvini (Berlepsch, 1883) – east Mexico to south Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize and Honduras
- D. f. insularis (Salvin, 1888) – Yucatán Peninsula (southeast Mexico) and north Guatemala
- D. f. discolor (Ridgway, 1901) – northeast, central, east Nicaragua
- D. f. fuscicauda (Cabanis, 1861) – south Nicaragua to west Panama
- D. f. willisi (Parkes, 1969) – central Panama
- D. f. erythrolaema (Sclater, PL, 1862) – north Colombia