Black-faced Antbird

The black-faced antbird is 12 to 13.5 cm (4.7 to 5.3 in) long and weighs 16 to 22 g (0.56 to 0.78 oz). Adult males of the nominate subspecies M. m. myotherinus have a dark bluish gray crown, nape, and upperparts with a small white patch between their scapulars. Their wings and tail are slightly darker gray with white tips on the wing coverts. Their face is mostly black with a pale supercilium. Their throat is black and the rest of their underparts pale gray with slightly darker sides, flanks, and crissum. Adult females have a dark grayish olive-brown crown, nape, and upperparts. Their wings and tail are also mostly dark grayish olive-brown; their wing coverts are black with pale yellowish brown tips. Their face is blackish and their throat white with small black spots at its lower edge. Their underparts are light buff with an olive tinge on the sides, flanks, and crissum. Subadult males have variable amounts of brown mixed in with their gray upperparts, and have brownish edges on their flight feathers and paler underparts than adults. Both sexes have a deep red iris. The other subspecies of the black-faced antbird are differ from the nominate and each other thus:

M. m. elegans: male is slightly paler than nominate; female has dark olive-gray upperparts, darker yellow-buff tips on the wing coverts than nominate, and reddish underparts with brown sides and flanks M. m. …

The black-faced antbird occupies much of the Amazon Basin. The subspecies are found thus:

M. m. elegans: southern Venezuela, extreme northwestern Brazil, and from southeastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador into central Peru north of the Amazon and west of the Ucayali River M. m. myotherinus: eastern Peru east of the Ucayali, Amazonas and Acre states in western Brazil, and northwestern Bolivia M. m. incanus: Brazil north of the upper Amazon (Solimões) between the Japurá and Içá rivers M. m. ardesiacus: Brazil between the Japura and Negro rivers M. m. proximus: Brazil south of the Amazon between the Purus and Madeira rivers M. m. ochrolaemus: Brazil south of the Amazon from the Madeira and Roosevelt rivers east to the Atlantic at Marajó Island and south into Mato Grosso state M. m. sororius: Rondônia and southeastern Amazonas states in south-central Brazil The black-faced antbird primarily inhabits the understorey of terra firme evergreen forest; it also occurs in nearby mature secondary woodland, transitional forest, and occasionally in seasonally flooded areas. It favors the dense vegetation regrowing in gaps such as those caused by fallen trees. In elevation it reaches 900 m (3,000 ft) in Brazil and Venezuela, 800 m (2,600 ft) in Colombia, and 1,250 m (4,100 ft) in Peru. …

The black-faced antbird's diet is not known in detail but includes insects and spiders. It typically forages singly, in pairs, or in small family groups in dense vegetation, mostly on the ground or within about 2 m (7 ft) of it though occasionally slightly higher. It hops and makes short flights between feeding stops, bobbing its tail and flicking its wings. It captures prey by gleaning, jumping, and lunging from a perch; it also drops to the ground to snatch prey. It regularly attends army ant swarms to capture prey fleeing the ants, but is subordinate to obligate ant-followers. It seldom joins mixed-species feeding flocks.