White-bearded Antshrike

The white-bearded antshrike is 17 to 18 cm (6.7 to 7.1 in) long. This species exhibits some sexual dimorphism, and both sexes have a crest. Adult males have a black forehead, crown, and upper nape. The black of the crown extends down to the lores and eyes except for a faint white line through the eye. Their chin and the rest of their face are white that becomes pale buff around the lower nape. Their upperparts are reddish yellow-brown and their wings and tail are rufous. Their lower throat and breast are black and the rest of their underparts clay-colored. Females have a rufous-brown crown, a distinct white supercilium, and no black on the throat and breast. Their back, wings, tail, and lower underparts are like the male's.

The white-bearded antshrike has a disjunct distribution. It is found intermittently in south-eastern Brazil from Minas Gerais south into northeastern Santa Catarina and in northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province. Though the International Ornithological Committee also includes eastern Paraguay in its range, the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society has no records from that country, and the Clements taxonomy does not include it. The white-bearded antshrike is a bamboo specialist. It primarily inhabits bamboo in evergreen forest and mature secondary forest, and in parts of Brazil is found only in very large stands of Merostachys bamboo. It also occurs in the ecotone between cerrado and secondary forest in Minas Gerais and in Araucaria forest in Paraná, but always in association with bamboo. An extensive survey in Misiones, Argentina, found it only in stands of Guadua trinii bamboo. In all areas it favors the forests' understorey to mid-storey. In elevation it ranges between 500 and 1,200 m (1,600 and 3,900 ft).

The white-bearded antshrike's diet has not been fully defined but is known to include insects, spiders, and seeds. It forages singly or in pairs and often joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It feeds primarily in and very near bamboo, and typically between about 1 and 10 m (3 and 30 ft) above the ground. It hops along bamboo stems and tree branches, gleaning prey from stems and foliage by reaching in all directions and sometimes making short upward sallies from a perch.