Reddish-winged Bare-eye

The reddish-winged bare-eye is 17 to 18.5 cm (6.7 to 7.3 in) long and weighs 50 to 58 g (1.8 to 2.0 oz). Both sexes have a large ring of bare red skin around the eye. Adult males of the nominate subspecies are mostly black. They have white edges on the feathers of their upperparts and lesser wing coverts. Their median and greater wing coverts have wide rufous tips and their flight feathers have rufous bases. The tips of their uppertail coverts are dark reddish brown. Adult females have a very dark reddish brown crown, upperparts, and wing coverts with white tips on the coverts. Their flight feathers are blackish brown with white tips on the tertials; their tail is blackish brown with a pale band across it. The center of their throat is tawny-tinged white. Their face to the center of their belly are rufous and their flanks and vent area are rufous-brown. Subadult males have the same pattern as adults but are grayer and have a rufous tinge. The feathers of their back have wide cinnamon-rufous edges; their greater wing coverts and the bases of their flight feathers are also cinnamon-rufous. Males of subspecies P. e. ustulata have completely black uppertail coverts but are otherwise like the nominate. Females have pale buff tips on their wing coverts.

The nominate subspecies of the reddish-winged bare-eye is found from southeastern Colombia and southwestern Venezuela south through eastern Ecuador into northeastern Peru. From there its range extends east through northwestern Brazil to the Rio Negro. Subspecies P. e. ustulata is found in eastern Peru, extreme northwestern Bolivia, and southwestern Amazonian Brazil east to the Rio Madeira. The species primarily inhabits the understorey of humid terra firme evergreen forest. Along the upper Rio Negro it also occurs in stunted woodlands growing on white sand soils. In elevation it occurs below 550 m (1,800 ft) in most of its range but reaches 750 m (2,500 ft) in Ecuador and 600 m (2,000 ft) in Colombia.

The reddish-winged bare-eye is an obligate ant follower that feeds on a variety of arthropods that flee foraging army ant swarms, primarily those of Eciton burchelli. It typically forages individually, in pairs, and in family groups, perching within about 1 m (3 ft) of the ground (though sometimes as high as 3 m (10 ft)) and sallying or pouncing to the ground after prey. It occasionally makes short aerial sallies and also flips leaves on the ground to find prey. Several pairs or family groups may attend an ant swarm but sometimes members of a pair follow different swarms. It is dominant over most other ant followers.