Diet and Foraging

Vermilion Tanager forages primarily in the canopy, where it searches in moss and epiphytes along horizontal branches for insects, which are gleaned from bark or epiphytic vegetation, but this tanager only rarely sallies for flying insects (Isler and Isler 1987). Vermilion Tanager also frequently consumes fruit, although it does not visit fruiting trees as often as do other tanagers (Hilty 2011). Important fruits in the diet are Cecropia catkins and the large fruit of melastomes, with Cecropia seeds found in the stomach of one specimen (Isler and Isler 1987, Hilty 2011); the fruits of Miconia are consumed only rarely (Isler and Isler 1987).