Puna Snipe

The puna snipe is 22.5 to 25 cm (8.9 to 9.8 in) long and weighs 65 to 105 g (2.3 to 3.7 oz). The sexes are alike. Their upperparts have a complex pattern of muted whitish, buffy, rufous, black, and brown. White trailing edges to their wings show when in flight. Their breast and flanks are buff with black markings and the rest of their underparts white. Their white face has a bold brown stripe through the eye.

The nominate subspecies of puna snipe is found in the Andes of Peru, northern Chile, Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina. Undocumented sight records in Ecuador lead the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society to class it as hypothetical in that country. Subspecies G. a. innotata is found only in northern Chiles's Antofagasta Region. The puna snipe inhabits the puna grassland zone of the Andes. It favors damp to wet landscapes, such as boggy rivers, cushion plant bogs, the reedy edges of ponds, lakes, and rivers, and sometimes open reed marshes. In elevation it ranges between 3,000 and 4,600 m (9,800 and 15,100 ft) in Peru, between 2,000 and 5,000 m (6,600 and 16,400 ft) in Chile, and between 2,000 and 4,000 m (6,600 and 13,100 ft) in Argentina.

The puna snipe's feeding behavior and diet have not been studied. Both are assumed to be similar to those of other South American Gallinago snipes, which forage for insect larvae and earthworms by probing mud and wet soil.