Eared Pygmy-Tyrant

The eared pygmy tyrant is about 7 to 9 cm (2.8 to 3.5 in) long and weighs about 5 g (0.18 oz). It is a very small, large-headed bird with a dramatic facial pattern. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a buffish cinnamon area surrounding the eye, whitish ear coverts with a black crescent behind them, and a black patch below the eye. Their crown is bright olive with a brown tinge, their nape and neck gray, and their back and rump bright olive. Their wings are dusky with bright olive-yellow edges on the flight feathers and tips of the coverts; the latter show as two indistinct wing bars. Their tail is dusky. Their throat and upper breast are white with thin black streaks and the rest of their underparts are bright yellow with some olive streaks. Subspecies M. a. cinereicollis is variable but usually has paler, buffy whitish, ear coverts. Both subspecies have an orange iris, a blackish bill, and pinkish legs and feet.

The eared pygmy tyrant is a bird of the Atlantic Forest. Subspecies M. a. cinereicollis is the more northern of the two. It is found in eastern Brazil in southeastern Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo. There are also a few scattered records north of Bahia. The nominate subspecies is found in southeastern Brazil between Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio de Janeiro state and south to northern Rio Grande do Sul, and through eastern Paraguay into northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province. The species primarily inhabits dense vegetation at the edges of humid forest. It occasionally is found in the forest interior and in trees in meadows adjoining the forest. In elevation it ranges from sea level to about 1,250 m (4,100 ft).

The eared pygmy tyrant feeds on insects, though details are lacking. It mostly forages in the vegetation's lower and middle levels up to about 3 m (10 ft) above the ground, taking prey using short upward sallies from a perch to grab it from leaves.