Order
Passeriformes
Family
Tyrannidae
Genus
Anairetes
 
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Version 1.0

This is a historic version of this account.  Current version

SPECIES

Tufted Tit-Tyrant Anairetes parulus

Galen A. Dolkas and Trent J. Neiman
Version: 1.0 — Published October 30, 2015

Behavior

Introduction

Food capture and consumption:

Forage singly, in pairs, or in groups of three by gleaning insects off of vegetation. When foraging together, one will forage around a shrub while the other(s) wait. Prey are located by sight and captured by perch-gleaning, (47% of total captures), hover-gleaning/ leaping upward to catch prey (31.5% of captures), and flycatching (21.5% of captures) (Engilis and Kelt 2009).

Nutrition and energetics:

No information.

Metabolism and temperature regulation:

No information.

Drinking, pellet-casting, and defecation:

No information.

Agonistic behavior:

Tufted Tit-Tyrants are typically agonistic to conspecifics, usually when defending territory, which they defend aggressively (Engilis and Kelt 2009). Agonistic behavior includes rapid calling and displacement behavior, crest raising, physical attacks, and chases through scrubs (Engilis and Kelt 2009). Territorial displays typically cease once the intruder moves away (Engilis and Kelt 2009). When threatened by predators or humans they will raise their crest as a sign of aggression with the most aggressive males lifting their crests higher and more often. When the crest is at its highest, almost vertical, it suggests that the tit tyrant is about to attack (Smith 1971).

Self-maintenance:

No information.

Territoriality

Tufted Tit-Tyrant is territorial (Smith 1971), but there is little quantitative information on territory or home range size. At one site in Chile, densities varied from less than 5 to 15 birds/ha (Engilis and Kelt 2009).

Sexual Behavior

Tufted Tit-Tyrant is at least socially monogamous.

Social and interspecific behavior

Tufted Tit-Tyrants usually are solitary or in pairs, or in small (family?) groups; may associate with mixed species flocks, but usually forages independent from flocks (Hilty and Brown 1986, Fjeldså and Krabbe 1990, Ridgely and Greenfield 2001b).

Predation

No reports of predation on Tufted Tit-Tyrant?

Recommended Citation

Dolkas, G. A. and T. J. Neiman (2015). Tufted Tit-Tyrant (Anairetes parulus), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.tuttyr1.01