Perija Antpitta

Grallaria antpittas are a "wonderful group of plump and round antbirds whose feathers are often fluffed up...they have stout bills [and] very short tails". The Perija antpitta is about 14 to 15 cm (5.5 to 5.9 in) long. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have buff brown to olive brown upperparts with whitish bases on the forecrown feathers. They have deep olive buff lores, a thin and indistinct whitish eyering, and brownish ear coverts. Their wings are mostly buff brown to olive brown with gray brown to brownish olive outer edges on the flight feathers. Their tail is buffy gray brown. Their throat is whitish. Their underparts are mostly dull white with buffy brown breast sides, flanks, and thighs. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a dusky brown to grayish black maxilla, a mandible with a grayish pink base and a dark gray to blackish tip, and fuscous, pinkish gray legs and feet.

The Perija antpitta is found entirely within the Serranía del Perijá in the Venezuelan state of Zulia and the Colombian departments of La Guajira and Cesar. Its exact habitat requirements have not been documented. However, it appears to favor the floor and understory of humid montane forest, its edges, and also nearby disturbed areas. In elevation it ranges between 2,500 and 3,250 m (8,200 and 10,700 ft). The Perija antpitta is separated from the closely related Muisca antpitta (G. rufula) by the Serranía de Los Motilones, and from the also closely related Sierra Nevada antpitta (G. spaciator) by the Cesar depression that separates the Perijá range from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

The Perija antpitta's diet and foraging behavior are unknown but are assumed to be similar to those of other Grallaria antpittas. They eat arthropods and other invertebrates captured while running or hopping on the forest floor and stopping to find prey by flipping aside leaf litter and probing the soil.