Crimson-collared Tanager

The crimson-collared tanager is 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) long and weighs 35 to 48 g (1.2 to 1.7 oz). The sexes and the subspecies have the same plumage though R. s. apricus is smaller than the nominate. Adults are mostly black with a faint bluish gloss on the back, scapulars, and the edges of the wing coverts. They have a glossy blood-red or crimson hood that surrounds their black face and throat, and extends to include the neck and breast. Their rump, uppertail coverts, and undertail coverts are the same blood-red or crimson. Their underwing coverts are vermillion red. They have a red to reddish brown iris, a silvery white to pale grayish blue bill, and blue-gray to black legs. Juveniles are overall duller with a dark brown base color; they are orangish red where adults are crimson and have a duller bill.

The nominate subspecies of the crimson-collared tanager is the more northerly of the two. It is found on the Gulf/Caribbean slope from Veracruz and northern Oaxaca in southeastern Mexico south (bypassing the Yucatán Peninsula) through northern Guatemala and most of Belize into northern Honduras. Subspecies R. s. apricus is found on the Caribbean slope from eastern Honduras south through Nicaragua and Costa Rica to central Panama's Panamá Province. It range also extends locally across northern Costa Rica and in local areas on Panama's Pacific slope. The crimson-collared tanager primarily inhabits the edges of evergreen forest and secondary forest in the tropical and lower subtropical zones. It also occurs in abandoned plantations, in pastures with trees, and in the north it has been observed in orchards and fruit trees in lightly human-inhabited areas.

The crimson-collared tanager's diet has not been studied but is known to include both arthropods and fruits. It typically forages in tall shrubs and the lower parts of trees between about 2 and 10 m (7 and 33 ft) above the ground. It takes insect prey from thick foliage. It usually is found singly or in pairs; it seldom joins mixed-species feeding flocks though it will share fruiting trees with other species.