The masked crimson tanager
“Ramphocelus nigrogularis” is a species of bird belong to the family
Thraupidae. The stunning masked crimson tanager normally found in Brazil, Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical
swamps and subtropical or tropical moist shrubland. The masked crimson tanager
is found across Amazonia and is abundant. It prefers to dwell near bodies of
water such as lakes, swamps or rivers, generally at altitudes below 2000 ft.
The masked crimson tanager makes a high-pitched single note variously
transcribed "tink", and a simple melody often sung at dawn. Masked
crimson tanagers may also feed on the nectar of flowers as part of their diet.
They feed on flowers of Erythrina fusca plants without damaging them, while
simultaneously contacting the anthers of the flowers with their heads, thus
making them effective pollinators.
Moreover, the bird name is
derived from the Latin words niger "black", and gularis
"throated". It is one of nine species of brightly colored tanagers of
the genus Ramphocelus. The species measuring 18 to 19 cm in length, while the
adult male has a black face, wings, mantle, belly and tail, and is a bright red
elsewhere in its plumage, while the bill has a silver sheen. Though the female
resembles with male but has a brownish belly and duller plumage overall, while the
juvenile is duller still, and resembles the vermilion tanager but the latter
lives at higher altitudes. The birds prefer to move in troops of 10 to 12 birds,
can form mixed species flocks with the silver-beaked tanager and it is
frugivorous (fruit-eating).
The masked crimson tanager has
been speculated to engage in reverse sexual dominance behavior alike to their
congener pair, the silver-beaked tanager. The birds belong to the passerine
bird order; exhibit this behavior same to that of their cousin. Though, there
is no observable evidence to backing the hypothesis that the masked crimson
tanager are among the rare and unexplained phenomenon of reverse sexual
dominance. Therefore, under normal situations, passerine species of birds demonstrate
a default hierarchy of dominance wherein larger, heavier birds tend to dominate
the smaller, lighter birds and males incline to dominate females. The masked
crimson tanagers select to inhabit sites close to or around oxbow lakes, a
common geographical feature of their native Amazon biome.
They demonstrate aggression while
defending the more productive areas around the lakes, causing the silver-beaked
tanager to occupy the riparian forest. The species are competitively superior
and dominate most interspecies interactions with their cousin. The species
breeds in between the dry and wet seasons of the seasonal tropics that they
occupy. This species of tanager contributes in cooperative breeding, which includes
the communal care and protection of the offspring. In neotropical forests, the
masked crimson tanager congregates in mixed flocks much like those seen in
flycatchers and vireos. The degree to which the masked crimson tanager forms
mixed flocks correlates with the relative extent to which broad-leafed canopy
make up the composition of the neotropical forest.
Like most tanagers, masked crimson tanagers are mostly
frugivorous, supplementing their fruit diets with small insects such as flying
termites. Their insectivorous tendency is driven by the periodic cycle of the
breeding of termites, which yield winged males and females when sexually
active. These termites are richer in nutrients than normal wood termites and
therefore it may become more ecologically sound for the masked crimson tanager
to feed on these insects to supplement their existing diets. This species has
an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for
Vulnerable under the range size criterion. Despite the fact that the population
trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently
rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend,
hence species is evaluated as Least Concern.
