White-capped Tanager

The white-capped tanager is the heaviest member of its family. It averages 24 cm (9.4 in) long and weighs 95 to 125 g (3.4 to 4.4 oz). The species is slightly sexually dimorphic. Adult males have pure white lores, forehead, and crown with a plush texture. Their body is mostly velvety black with a bright crimson throat and breast. Their wings and tail are glossy bluish black. Adult females are less glossy than males and have a duskier throat and breast that is almost purple. Juveniles have a buffy gray crown and only a small amount of red on their chin and upper throat.

The white-capped tanager has a disjunct distribution. It is found intermittently on the eastern slope of the Andes from extreme southern Táchira in western Venezuela south along Colombia's Eastern Andes and eastern Ecuador into Peru as far as Junín Department. It also is found in Colombia in the upper Magdalena River valley and on both slopes of the Central Andes. The white-capped tanager inhabits the interior of humid montane forest heavy with mosses. It is found less frequently on the forest edges and secondary forest. In elevation it ranges between 1,800 and 3,000 m (5,900 and 9,800 ft) in Venezuela, between 2,000 and 3,300 m (6,600 and 10,800 ft) in Colombia, mostly between 1,900 and 2,700 m (6,200 and 8,900 ft) in Ecuador, and between 1,700 and 2,800 m (5,600 and 9,200 ft) in Peru.

The white-capped tanager's diet has not been studied but specimens' stomachs have contained a variety of larval and adult insects, seeds, and fruit, and a snail shell. It typically forages in what appear to be family groups of up to eight individuals but flocks of up to 20 are known. It seldom joins mixed-species feeding flocks but does associate with a few other species. It forages mostly near or in the forest canopy but will do so lower at the forest edge. It apparently has large foraging ranges.