Red-and-white Spinetail (Certhiaxis mustelina)

Red-and-white Spinetail (Certhiaxis mustelina)

Marchantaria Island, Amazonas, Brazil
July 2001

The Red-and-white Spinetail is found on river islands and along the banks of Amazonian rivers. Its range is narrow but long stretching along the rivers from Belém upriver to Leticia in Colombia and into eastern Peru.

The much more widespread Yellow-chinned Spinetail (Certhiaxis cinnamomea) is also found in the same area and habitat but the Red-and-white is distinguished by its brighter rufous colouring, its black rather than grey lores, its entirely rufous crown and its lack of a greyish supercilium.

The scientific name mustelina is derived from the Latin for weasel: "mustela" in view of the rufous and white colouration shared by both.

There is an illustration in Hilty & Brown, Plate 25.

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