Wire-tailed Manakin

The wire-tailed manakin is sexually dimorphic. The species is 11 to 12 cm (4.3 to 4.7 in) long exclusive of the eponymous tail filaments. Male's filaments add about 4 cm (1.6 in) to its length and female's about 2.5 cm (1.0 in). The species weighs an average of about 14 g (0.49 oz). Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a yellow forecrown, face, and throat; the rest of their crown, nape, and sides of the neck are bright red. The rest of their upperparts, wings, and tail are black. Their entire underparts are yellow. They have a white or whitish iris. Adult females have a mostly dull olive-green head, upperparts, wings, and tail. Their face and breast have a yellow tinge; their lower breast and belly are grayish that is lightest on the belly. They have a pale gray or magenta to whitish iris. Both sexes have a blackish bill and sooty reddish legs and feet. Immatures of both sexes resemble adult females but have a brown iris. Subspecies P. f. subpallida is essentially the same as the nominate though males are slightly paler overall.

The nominate subspecies of the wire-tailed manakin is the more northwesterly of the two and has a much smaller range. It is found from east of the Andes in Colombia into western Venezuela on both sides of the Andes. To the north of them its range extends to northeastern Zulia and southern Lara. South of them it extends from Táchira and western Apure northeast to a north-south line roughly from the Federal District and Miranda south to southern Apure. Subspecies P. f. subpallida is found from eastern Ecuador and northeastern Peru (north of the middle Ucayali River) east across western and southern Amazonas in Venezuela into northwestern and central Brazil. There its range extends east north of the Amazon to the Branco and Negro rivers and south of the Amazon to the upper Juruá and middle Purus rivers. The wire-tailed manakin inhabits a variety of somewhat open landscapes; in all of them it favors areas along watercourses. These include gallery forest, secondary forest, and open woodlands. In Venezuela it also occurs in coffee and cacao plantations. In Colombia and Ecuador it ranges in elevation up to 500 m (1,600 ft). In Venezuela it reaches 1,000 m (3,300 ft) north of the Orinoco River and only to 300 m (1,000 ft) south of it. In Brazil it reaches 600 m (2,000 ft).

The wire-tailed manakin feeds primarily on small fruits and also insects. It plucks them while perched and with short flights from a perch.