Superciliaried Hemispingus

The superciliaried hemispingus (Thlypopsis superciliaris) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and degraded former forest.

Taxonomy: The superciliaried hemispingus was formally described as Arremon superciliaris by the French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye in 1840. Lafresnaye described the species based on a specimen from "Santa Fe de Bogota", which is current-day Bogotá, Colombia. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word meaning "eyebrowed". The superciliaried hemispingus has seven recognised subspecies in four subspecies groups. The irregular and non-clinal variation in morphological features such as the color of the underparts and supercilium suggests that several of these subspecies may be better treated as separate species.

• T. s. chrysophrys (Sclater & Salvin, 1875): Found in the Andes of western Venezuela.
• T. s. superciliaris (de Lafresnaye, 1840): The nominate subspecies, it is found in the Andes of Colombia in Santander, Boyacá, and Cundinamarca.
• T. s. nigrifrons (Lawrence, 1875): Native to Ecuador and Colombia´s Central Andes.
• T. s. maculifrons (Zimmer, 1947): Found on the western versant of the Andes from northern Peru north to southern Ecuador.
• T. s. insignis (Zimmer, 1947): Native to the eastern versant of the Peruvian Andes from Junín to Amazonas.
• T. s. leucogastra (Taczanowski, 1874): Native to the eastern versant of the Andes in Junín.
• T. s. urubambae (Zimmer, 1947): Found on the eastern versant of the Andes from central Bolivia north to Cusco in Peru.

 The superciliaried hemispingus is, on average, long and weighs .

Distribution and habitat: The superciliaried hemispingus is native to most of the Andes from Venezuela south through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru to Bolivia, being absent only from the western versant of the Colombian Andes. It is a denizen of moist forests, woodland edges, and secondary forests, typically at elevations of . In Peru and Ecuador, it is known from elevations as high as 3450 m and 3700 m, respectively.