Vocal evidence for restitution of species rank to a Santa Marta endemic- Automolus rufipectus Bangs (Furnariidae), with comments on its generic affinities

摘要

Some passerines in the family Tyrannidae possess entirely innate songs (Stein 1963, Lanyon 1978, Kroodsma 1984, 1989, Kroodsma & Konishi 1991), with no local dialects. A similar lack of dialects in several other families strongly suggests that song isinnate in nearly all suboscines, which has led to a recent re-evaluation of the taxonomic ranks of many forms (see, e.g., Remsen 2005). Several of these are members of the Furnariidae (Vaurie & Schwartz 1972, Whitney & Pacheco 1994, Kratter & Parker 1997, Zimmer 1997, 2002, Robbins & Zimmer 2005, Zimmer et al. 2008), which includes a large number of taxa that occur in dense and dark habitats, where vocalisations, rather than visual signals, probably play a major role in species recognition. The furnariid taxa Furnarius cinnamomeus, F. lon-girostris, Synallaxis maranonica and Hyloctistes virgatus are afforded species rank on the basis of vocal characters by some authors, whereas others (e.g. Remsen et al. 2007) await the publication of vocal studies before accepting taxonomic changes. During field work to document the voices of birds in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, northern Colombia, in February 2007, I ascertained that the songs of several endemic taxa presently treated as subspecies are quite distinct from purported conspecifics. The present paper addresses Automolus rubiginosus rufipectus, described as a full species, Ruddy Foliage-gleaner A. rufipectus, by Bangs (1898), which differs so much from its alleged conspecifics that even its generic placement may demand re-evaluation. A. rufipectus was ranked as a subspecies of A. rubiginosus by Hellmayr (in Cory & Hellmayr 1925), a treatment that has been widely followed until the present.