Pinto's Spinetail Synallaxis infuscata Scientific name definitions

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Listed as globally Endangered by BirdLife International, the principally grayish and rufous-colored Pinto’s Spinetail is endemic to a tiny area of northeast Brazil, where it is suspected to be undergoing a still-rapid decline in both its population and available habitat. This region of the country has been subjected to massive and seemingly unmitigated habitat destruction, principally due to logging and conversion of the land to either sugarcane plantations or pastures. The species is known from a handful of localities in the state of Alagoas and a similar number of sites in neighboring Pernambuco, but it appears to be uncharacteristically rare, for a spinetail, given its dependence on edge and second-growth habitats, rather than primary forest. It is usually found alone or in pairs, foraging very close to the ground within dense tangles and thickets, probing in clusters of dead leaves and perch-gleaning for arthropods.