Northern Schiffornis

The northern schiffornis is 15.5 to 16.5 cm (6.1 to 6.5 in) long and weighs about 20 to 40 g (0.71 to 1.4 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies S. v. veraepacis have an indistinct pale ring around the eye on an otherwise dark brownish olive face. Their upperparts and tail are dark brownish olive. Their wings are a warmer brown. Their throat and breast are brownish olive and their belly and vent grayish olive. Subspecies S. v. dumicola is darker and more olive than the nominate, with little difference between their back and breast. S. v. acrolophites is even darker and more olive than dumicola but with a chestnut-brown chin and throat. S. v. rosenbergi has entirely dark brownish olive underparts with no gray. All subspecies have a dark iris.

The subspecies of the northern schiffornis are found thus:

S. v. veraepacis: from southern Veracruz and northern Oaxaca in southern Mexico south (excluding much of the Yucatán Peninsula) along the Gulf/Caribbean slope through Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and also on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica from central Puntarenas Province south S. v. dumicola: Panama, in Veraguas and Colón provinces on the Caribbean slope and from Chiriquí Province to western Panamá Province on the Pacific slope S. v. acrolophites: from extreme eastern Panama south into northwestern Colombia's Serranía del Baudó S. v. rosenbergi: Pacific slope from Chocó Department in northwestern Colombia south through western Ecuador and just barely into extreme northwestern Peru's Tumbes Department The northern schiffornis primarily inhabits the interior of humid to wet evergreen forest; it only rarely occurs at the forest edge and nearby mature secondary forest. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in northern Central America, to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) on the Caribbean slope and to 1,700 m (5,600 ft) on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica, to 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Colombia, and to 1,300 m (4,300 ft) in Ecuador.

The northern schiffornis feeds on fruits and insects, though details are lacking. It usually forages singly and only rarely joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It forages mostly in the forest's understory, often clinging to a low-level vertical stem, and takes food from vegetation with short sallies from a perch.