Ashy-throated Chlorospingus

The ashy-throated chlorospingus is 13 to 14 cm (5.1 to 5.5 in) long and weighs 14.5 to 21 g (0.51 to 0.74 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies C. c. canigularis have a mostly gray head with slightly darker ear coverts and a grayish white throat. They have a wide light yellow band across the chest that continues with an olive tinge along the sides and flanks. The centers of their breast and belly are whitish to grayish white and their undertail coverts olive-yellow. The other subspecies of the ashy-throated chlorospingus differ from the nominate and each other thus:

C. c. olivaceiceps: olive rather than gray head C. c. conspicillatus: wider and slightly darker chest band and slightly more olive sides and flanks C. c. paulus: like conspicillatus but with ear coverts the same gray as the rest of the head C. c. signatus: slightly darker gray head with thin white stripe from the eye to the nape All subspecies have a reddish brown iris, a dusky maxilla, usually a pale steel-gray mandible, and dark gray legs and feet.

The ashy-throated chlorospingus has a highly disjunct distribution. No two subspecies have contiguous ranges and some have gaps within their range. The subspecies are found thus:

C. c. olivaceiceps: Costa Rica on eastern slope of volcanoes in Central Valley and in upper watershed of Reventazón River; western Panama between Bocas del Toro and Veraguas provinces C. c. canigularis: from southern Táchira state in western Venezuela south along the western slope of Colombia's Eastern Andes C. c. conspicillatus: both slopes of Colombia's Central and Western Andes C. c. paulus: western slope of Andes from northern Ecuador's western Pichincha Province south into far northwestern Peru's Tumbes Department; locally in coastal mountains in Ecuador's southern Manabí and northern Santa Elena provinces C. c. signatus: eastern slope of Andes from northern Ecuador's Napo Province south and intermittently through Peru to northern Puno Department The ashy-throated chlorospingus inhabits lowland and tropical evergreen forest and tropical deciduous forest. It favors wet forest heavy with moss and is found mostly in the forest canopy and its edges. …

The ashy-throated chlorospingus' diet is not well known but does include fruits. It forages in pairs or groups of up to about ten individuals and regularly joins mixed-species feeding flocks.