Ayacucho Antpitta

The Ayacucho antpitta is about 14 to 15 cm (5.5 to 5.9 in) long; one male (the holotype) weighed 48.4 g (1.7 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have dark reddish yellow-brown crown, nape, ear coverts, upperparts, tail, and wings. Their flight feathers have slightly duskier inner vanes. Their lores, eye area, throat, breast, upper belly, sides, and upper flanks are yellowish-red brown, their lower flanks somewhat darker, their lower belly light buff with sometimes some pale gray mottling, and their undertail coverts pinkish white. They have a dark brown iris, a black bill, and dusky gray legs and feet.

The Ayacucho antpitta is confined the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes in the department of Ayacucho. All confirmed records are west of the Apurímac River and between the Mantaro and Pampas rivers. It is separated from the closely related Oxapampa antpitta (G. centralis) by the Mantaro River and from the Urubamba antpitta (G. occabambae) by the Apurímac River. The species' habitat preferences are not fully known but appear to be the same as those of its former conspecific chestnut antpitta. That species inhabits the understory of humid montane forest and secondary forest, heavy with moss and epiphytes, where it favors stands of bamboo and other dense undergrowth. In elevation the Ayacucho antpitta occurs between 2,400 and 3,900 m (7,900 and 12,800 ft).

The Ayacucho antpitta's diet and foraging behavior have not been detailed; it is known to eat insects and is assumed to eat other arthropods and perhaps small vertebrates as do other members of genus Grallaria . It is known to forage on or very near the ground.