Systematics

Five subspecies are recognized (Cory and Hellmayr 1924, Krabbe and Schulenberg 2003):

1. intermedius, described as Grallaria intermedia by Ridgway (1884); type locality: Talamanca, eastern Costa Rica

Occurs on the Caribbean slope from Honduras south to western Panama.

Subspecies intermedius is distinguished by the bright buffy or tawny buff flanks and undertail coverts; the flanks also are unstreaked (Ridgway 1911).

2. lizanoi, described as Grallaria lizanoi by Cherrie (1891); type locality: Las Trojas, southwestern Costa Rica

Occurs in southwestern Costa Rica and, formerly, western Panama in Chiriquí.

Subspecies lizanoi is similar to nominate perspicillatus, but the back and scapulars have little or no buff streaking (Ridgway 1911).

3. perpiscillatus, described as Grallaria perspicillata by Lawrence (1862); type locality: Lion Hill, Panama

Occurs in eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia (northern Chocó).

4. pallidior, described as Hylopezus perspicillatus pallidior by Todd (1919); type locality: El Tambor, Santander, Colombia

Occurs in northern Colombia, along the upper Río Sinú, in the lower Río Cauca Valley, and in the middle Río Magdalena Valley.

Subspecies pallidior is similar to nominate perpicillatus, but overall is paler; the sides of the head and the wing spots are paler buffy; the crown is duller gray; and the upperparts are a paler olive green (Todd 1919).

5. periophthalmica, described as Grallaria periophthalmica by Salvadori and Festa (1898); type locality: Rio Peripa, Ecuador

Occurs along the Pacific coast of Colombia (north to Chocó) and northwestern Ecuador.

Subspecies periophthalmicus is similar to nominate perspicillatus, but has a darker, olive blackish rather than slate gray crown, slightly more brownish olive back, and much deeper ochraceous lores and orbital ring (Cory and Hellmayr 1924).

Species

Hylopezus perspicillatus first was described from a specimen (nominate subspecies H. p. perspicillatus) collected along the Isthmus of Panama by G.N. Lawrence in 1861 (Krabbe and Schulenberg 2003). The species originally was placed in the genus Grallaria (Grallaria perspicillata) but was changed to the genus Hylopezus in 1969 (Lowery and O'Neill 1969). Originally, the English name of this species was Spectacled Antpitta due to its prominent eyering, but was changed to Streak-chested Antpitta in the 1990s. H. perspicillatus is a polytypic species, and five subspecies currently are recognized (see Geographic Variation).

Genus

Hylopezus is an exclusively New World genus comprised of 9 species (Table 3; Rice 2005). The genus originally was described by Ridgway (1909), with Grallaria perspicillata as the type species. Hylopezus was not recognized by Cory and Hellmayr (1924) or Peters (1951), but was resurrected by Lowery and O'Neill (1969) and retained by all subsequent authors. All species in the genus are socially monogamous, terrestrial, and insectivorous, and inhabit lowland forests throughout Central and South America.

Family

Streak-chested Antpitta is a member of the family Grallariidae, which currently comprises 53 species in 4 genera: Grallaria (32 species), Grallaricula (9 species), Hylopezus (10 species), and Myrmothera (2 species). The antpittas were previously classified as a subfamily (Grallariinae) of the family Formicariidae based on morphological characteristics (see Rice 2005 for a review), but more recent molecular analyses provide strong evidence for the monophyly of the Grallariidae (Rice 2005, Moyle et al. 2009), although the genetic relationships within the family have not been fully resolved (Ohlson et al. 2013).

Order

The Grallariidae family is contained within the largest avian order Passeriformes, and members of this family are tracheophone suboscines (Irestedt et al. 2002), which have a much simpler syrinx and stereotyped ontogeny of loudsong compared to oscines (Touchton et al. 2014).