Streak-headed Antbird

The streak-headed antbird is 14.5 to 15.5 cm (5.7 to 6.1 in) long and weighs 11 to 13 g (0.39 to 0.46 oz). Adult males have a black crown and back with white streaks and a white patch between the scapulars. Their rump is deep rufous. Their flight feathers are black with rufous edges and their wing coverts black with white tips. Their tail is blackish gray with white tips to the feathers. Their face, throat, and breast are white with heavy black streaks. Their belly is unstreaked white and their flanks and crissum are rufous. Females have the same pattern but different colors than males. Their crown is streaked with cinnamon-rufous and black. They do not have the white interscapular patch. Except for the white tail tips, the areas that are white on the male are rufous-buff on the female. Their underparts have a rufous-buff tinge and their flanks are paler than the male's.

The streak-headed antbird has a disjunct distribution. One population is found in the Colombian Central Andes and on the west slope of the country's Western Andes south along the Andean west slope to central Ecuador. Another is found on the east slope of the Western Andes and south on the Andes' east slope through Ecuador into northern Peru as far as the Department of San Martín. The third is found on the Andes' east slope from central Peru's Department of Huánuco south into Bolivia's La Paz Department. The streak-headed antbird inhabits the understorey to mid-storey of montane evergreen forest and secondary forest. It especially favors bamboo thickets and occurs less frequently in other dense undergrowth such as vine tangles and shrubby forest borders. In elevation it ranges between 1,200 and 3,150 m (3,900 and 10,300 ft) in Colombia, mostly between 1,500 and 2,600 m (4,900 and 8,500 ft) in Ecuador, and between 1,600 and 2,500 m (5,200 and 8,200 ft) in Peru.

The streak-headed antbird feeds primarily on insects and probably also on spiders. It typically forages by itself, in pairs, or in family groups and sometimes joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It mostly forages between 1 and 15 m (3 and 50 ft) above the ground, and primarily in bamboo. It takes most of its prey by reaching or lunging from a perch and also makes short sallies to overhanging vegetation. It is not known to follow army ants.