Drab-breasted Pygmy-Tyrant

The drab-breasted bamboo tyrant is about 11 cm (4.3 in) long and weighs 9.5 to 13.5 g (0.34 to 0.48 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a plain dark olive-green crown. They have a white spot above the lores and a white eye-ring on an otherwise olive-green face. Their back and rump are plain dark olive-green. Their wings and tail are plain olive though sometimes the innermost secondaries have paler edges. Their throat and breast are mostly dull gray with a pinkish or purplish tinge; there is a faint white crescent between them. Their belly is whitish and their crissum whitish with a yellow tinge. They have a reddish brown iris, a gray maxilla, a pinkish mandible, and light gray legs and feet.

The drab-breasted bamboo tyrant is found from Bahia state in east-central Brazil south to northern Rio Grande do Sul and into eastern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province. It inhabits the interior and edges of humid primary forest and mature secondary forest, where it almost exclusively occurs in patches of bamboo. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to about 1,300 m (4,300 ft).

The drab-breasted bamboo tyrant feeds on insects. It typically forages singly or in pairs and only rarely joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It feeds mostly in thick undergrowth with short upward sallies from a perch to glean prey from vegetation.