Black-throated Saltator

The black-throated saltator is 20 to 20.5 cm (7.9 to 8.1 in) long; one male weighed 53.8 g (1.9 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a black face, chin, and throat and brownish gray ear coverts. Their forehead, crown, nape, upperparts, and wings are dark brown with lighter edges on the feathers. Their tail is dark brown with faint darker bars. Their breast is pale buffy gray that becomes a warmer buff on the belly, flanks, and vent. They have a chocolate-brown iris, a thick orange bill with a blackish culmen, and light brown legs and feet. Juveniles have buff edges on their throat feathers and a dark bill.

The black-throated saltator is found primarily in eastern Brazil south of a line from southern Rondônia east to southern Tocantins then northeast to the Atlantic in northern Maranhão. Its southern boundary is from southern Mato Grosso do Sul east to southern Minas Gerais and then northeast to the Atlantic in northern Ceará. Its range in the west omits far southwestern Mato Grosso and western Mato Grosso do Sul. From Brazil its range extends west into northern and eastern Bolivia and southwest into northeastern Paraguay. The black-throated saltator inhabits dry scrublands in caatinga and cerrado. In elevation in Brazil it ranges between 700 and 1,300 m (2,300 and 4,300 ft).

The black-throated saltator's diet has not been studied but is known to include seeds, flower buds, fruit, and invertebrates. It forages mostly on the ground and usually as a member of a mixed-species feeding flock.