Checker-throated Stipplethroat

The checker-throated stipplethroat is 10 to 11 cm (3.9 to 4.3 in) long and weighs 8.5 to 11.5 g (0.30 to 0.41 oz). The sexes have nearly identical plumage. Males have a mostly gray face and a black throat with large white spots. Females have a mostly brownish buff face and throat. Adults of both sexes have a gray-brown crown and upperparts and a reddish tail. Their wing coverts are blackish brown to olive-brown with yellow-ochre tips and their flight feathers are reddish. Their breast is gray and the rest of their underparts are brownish buff that is darker towards the vent area. Their iris is golden that darkens with age. Juveniles have a gray iris that yellows as they mature.

The checker-throated stipplethroat is found on the Caribbean slope from far southeastern Honduras through Nicaragua and Costa Rica into western Panama, on both the Caribbean and Pacific slopes from western Panama into Colombia, east in Colombia into the Magdalena River valley, and south through western Colombia and Ecuador nearly to Peru. It inhabits evergreen forest in the lowlands and foothills and adjacent mature secondary forest. It favors areas with dense vine tangles that collect debris. In elevation it mostly ranges up to about 750 m (2,500 ft) in Central America, to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in Colombia, and to 900 m (3,000 ft) in Ecuador. It does reach 900 m (3,000 ft) in Costa Rica and 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in Colombia.

The checker-throated stipplethroat feeds on arthropods, especially cockroaches (Blattidae), crickets (Gryllidae), katydids (Tettigoniidae), and spiders. It typically forages in pairs or in small family groups and less often by itself, and usually as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. It occasionally, and for short periods, attends army ant swarms. It mostly forages in the forest understory to mid-story; some studies found that it seldom exceeds 10 m (30 ft) above the ground, but others have noted it feeding as high as 25 m (80 ft). It forages mostly in vine tangles, on their foliage and in dead leaves and other debris trapped in them. It also forages by hitching along thin branches and capturing prey from their live leaves, in clumps of moss, and from epiphytes.