Ash-throated Crake

The ash-throated crake is 21 to 24 cm (8.3 to 9.4 in) long and weighs 90 to 120 g (3.2 to 4.2 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have black upperparts with brown edges to the feathers, a pale gray throat, breast, and belly, and black and white bars on the flanks and undertail coverts. They have a short greenish bill and purplish brown legs. Subspecies M. a. typhoeca is smaller and paler than the nominate.

The ash-throated crake's subspecies have completely separate ranges. M. a. typhoeca is the more northerly. It is found from Colombia east through Venezuela, extreme northern Brazil, and the Guianas and south into far northeastern Ecuador. It previously occurred on Trinidad but has been extirpated from there. M. a. albicollis is found in eastern and southern Brazil, southeastern Peru, northern and eastern Bolivia, eastern Paraguay, extreme northern Argentina, and extreme northern Uruguay. The species inhabits a wide variety of damp to wet landscapes including freshwater marshes, moriche swamps, rice fields, savanna, and pastures, though it tends to be in the drier parts of marshes and swamps. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

The ash-throated crake usually forages out of sight in vegetation but sometimes emerges to the edges of it. Its diet is grass seeds and adults and larvae of insects such as Lepidoptera, Formicidae, and Coleoptera.