Yellow-throated Nightingale-Thrush

The yellow-throated nightingale-thrush is 17 to 19 cm (6.7 to 7.5 in) long and weighs 36 to 44 g (1.3 to 1.6 oz). Adult males of the nominate subspecies C. d. dryas have a mostly black head with an orange eye-ring and a buff chin and upper throat. Their upperparts are dull olive-gray. Their lower throat, breast, and upper belly are apricot-yellow with olive spots, their flanks grayish, and their lower belly and vent are whitish. Adult females are dark grayish on the back of their crown and head and have more olive upperparts than males. Subspecies C. d. harrisoni and C. d. ovandensis are nearly alike. They have grayer upperparts than the nominate and grey spots on their underparts. All subspecies have a dark iris, an orange bill, and orange legs and feet.

The yellow-throated nightingale-thrush has a disjunct distribution. Subspecies C. d. harrisoni is found in the southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca. C. d. ovandensis is found in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The nominate subspecies C. d. dryas has two or three separate ranges. One is across most of southern Guatemala. Another is in northern El Salvador and western Honduras and a third is in central Honduras. Other sources show a continuous range from Oaxaca through southern Guatemala, exclude the central Honduras population, and add a small range in extreme northwestern Nicaragua. The yellow-throated nightingale-thrush primarily inhabits humid tropical and subtropical forest where it favors damp ravines and areas along forest streams. South of Mexico it also inhabits pine-oak forest and higher-elevation coffee plantations. One source defines its elevational range as 1,200 to 3,000 m (3,900 to 9,800 ft) and another as 600 to 3,000 m (2,000 to 9,800 ft). South of Mexico it is 600 to 2,850 m (2,000 to 9,400 ft).

The yellow-throated nightingale-thrush's diet has not been studied. It forages low in the forest understory and on the ground. It sometimes attends army ant swarms.