Pale-faced Bare-eye

The pale-faced bare-eye is 16.5 to 17.5 cm (6.5 to 6.9 in) long and weighs about 50 g (1.8 oz). The sexes are alike. Adults have long white feathers on their forehead and lores, stiff black feathers above their eye, and a patch of bare whitish skin behind it. Their crown is dark rufous. Their upperparts are dark olive-brown with a scattering of black bars on the back. Their wings are chestnut and their tail blackish brown with a browner base. Their throat and breast are cinnamon-rufous with a band of black and white bars below them. The rest of their underparts are dull brown.

The pale-faced bare-eye is found in central Amazonian Brazil south of the Amazon from the Rio Madeira east to the Rio Tapajós and Rio Aripuanã and south to the Rio Roosevelt. It primarily inhabits the understorey of humid terra firme evergreen forest. In some areas it favors upland forest with many palms in the understorey. It occurs below an elevation of 150 m (500 ft).

The pale-faced bare-eye is an obligate ant follower that feeds on a variety of arthropods that flee foraging army ant swarms, primarily those of Eciton burchelli. It typically forages individually, in pairs, and in family groups, perching within about 1 m (3 ft) of the ground (though sometimes as high as 3 m (10 ft)) and sallying or pouncing to the ground after prey. It occasionally makes short aerial sallies and also flips leaves on the ground to find prey. It is dominant over many other ant followers, even some that are larger than it.