The
flame-rumped tanager (
Ramphocelus flammigerus) is a passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is found from Panama to western Ecuador in semi-open forest and woodland. The subspecies with a yellow rump from the Cauca Valley in Colombia, the lemon-rumped tanager, has sometimes been considered as a separate species.
Taxonomy: The flame-rumped tanager was formally described in 1833 by the English naturalists William Jardine and Prideaux John Selby based on a specimen collected on "some part of the district upon the Columbia River". They placed the species in the genus
Ramphopis and coined the binomial name
Ramphopis flamigerus where the specific epithet is a misspelling of the Latin word
flammigerus meaning "flame-bearing" or "fiery". It is now one of eight species placed in the genus
Ramphocelus that was introduced in 1805 by the French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest.
Two subspecies are recognised:
- R. f. flammigerus (Jardine, W & Selby, PJ, 1833) – western Colombia (middle Cauca Valley southward to Nariño)
- R. f. icteronotus Bonaparte, CLJL, 1838 – humid lowlands of Panama to western Colombia and western Ecuador
The subspecies
R. f. icteronotus has sometimes been treated as a separate species, the lemon-rumped tanager, but a study published in 2017 found very little genetic differentiation.
The flame-rumped tanager measures on average in length. It has very marked sexual dimorphism. Males of both subspecies have velvety black plumage with a scarlet-red spot on the back; the chest and rump are orange to red and the belly is bright yellow. The beak is cobalt blue to silver or whitish with a black tip. The female has an olive-brown back with dark spots; a reddish-orange rump; and a light yellow chest and belly.
The rump of the male
P. f. icteronotus is yellow, while it is red in
P. f. flammigerus. The rump is yellowish in the female
P. f. icteronotus, while the rump, vent and chest are orange-red in
P. f. flammigerus.
Distribution and habitat: The flame-rumped tanager is distributed from Panama to western Ecuador.
This species is considered quite common in its natural habitats: shrubby clearings, forest edges and gardens, mainly between 800 and 2000m above sea level.
The most widespread subspecies,
icteronotus, is found in the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena in Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and is sometimes considered a separate species, the lemon-rumped tanager (
R.f. icteronotus). However, it is known to hybridize with the nominate subspecies from the Cauca Valley in Colombia.