TYRANNIDAE: <I>SUIRIRI</I>
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COLORPL^FE. ChapadaFlycatcher, a new speciesof tyrant-flycatcher(Tyrannidae: Suiriri) from the cer- rado regionof centralSouth America. The male is pictured in profile on the left; the femaleis displaying with wings raised,on the right. From a watercolorpainting by Daniel E Lane. The Auk 118(1):56-78, 2001 A CRYPTIC NEW SPECIES OF FLYCATCHER (TYRANNIDAE: SUIRIRI) FROM THE CERRADO REGION OF CENTRAL SOUTH AMERICA KEVIN J. ZIMMER,1'2'5 ANDREW WHITTAKER, 3 AND DAVID C. OREN4 tLosAngeles County Museum of NaturalHistory, 900 ExpositionBoulevard, Los Angeles, California 90007, USA; 21665Garcia Road, Atascadero, California 93422, USA; 3Estradodo Aleixo, Conjunto Acariquara Sul, Rua da Samaumas214, Manaus,Amazonas, Brazil 69085; and 4Departamentode Zoologia, Museu Paraense Em•'lio Goeldi, Caixa Postal 399, 66.017-970 Beldm,Pard, Brazil ABSTRACT.--Anew speciesof tyrant flycatcher(Suiriri islerorum) is describedfrom the cer- radoregion of Braziland adjacenteastern Bolivia. The species previously had been confused with Suiriri suiriri affinis,with which it is syntopicat multiple sites.The new specieswas first identifiedby voice.Although cryptically similar to S.s.affinis in manyrespects, the new speciesis readilyidentified by all vocalizations,bill size,color pattern of the tail, and shape of the centralrectrices. Most distinctive are the male-femaleduets, which are accompanied by dramaticwing-lifting displaysnot performedby any congeners.Reciprocal playback ex- perimentsof tape-recordedvocalizations demonstrated that the new speciesand S.s.affinis do not respondto oneanother's vocalizations. We provide information on thenatural history of the new flycatcher,along with spectrogramsof its variousvocalizations. We alsoprovide vocalanalysis of all othernamed taxa in Suiriri,and discussthe variousintrageneric rela- tionships.In particular,S.s. affinisand S.s. bahiae,although distinct morphologically, are vocallyand behaviorallysimilar, and respondto oneanother's vocalizations in playbackex- periments.Received 27 December1999, accepted5 September2000. THE GENUS SUIRIRI has been the focus of tax- bahiaeas a subspeciesof S. affinis,from which onomicdebate for decades.Two speciestradi- he foundit to differ from typical formsby "up- tionallywere recognized, a short-billed,white- pertail covertsdark hair brown like the tail; bellied nominate form Suiriri suiriri; and a rectriceswithout any yellowishat the baseand longer-billed, yellow-bellied form, S. affinis. without the pale brownishapical band." The apparentintermediacy of a large seriesof Zimmer (1955) pointed out an additional Suiririfrom northeasternParaguay led Zimmer complication:five AMNH specimensof S.affin- (1955)to suggestthat the two taxa were con- is from Mato Grosso and Goias, Brazil, all of specific.Meyer de Schauensee(1966) and Tray- which were anomalousin having a short, lor (1979)followed Zimmer in recognizingonly broad-basedbill and with the "pale terminal onespecies of Suiriri,whereas Short (1975) did band on the rectricesunusually wide and dis- not agreethat Paraguayanbirds showedsigns tinct, exceedingany other specimenat hand of intergradation and continued to recognize whether from the same or other localities and two species.Traylor (1982) reexamined the Par- whether suiriri, affinis,or bahiae."Zimmer fur- aguayanmaterial in the AmericanMuseum of ther noted that "the significanceof this com- Natural History (AMNH), and found it as de- bination of charactersis completelypuzzling, scribedby Zimmer, concurringthat S. suiriri sincethere is no allied group toward which and S. affinisshould be treatedas conspecific. these features,singly or together, suggesta More recent authors have remained divided: trend." In his reexaminationof Suiriri, Traylor Sibley and Monroe (1990) recognizedtwo spe- (1982)commented on the five aberrentAMNH cies of Suiriri, whereas Ridgely and Tudor specimensand an identical specimen from (1994) recognizedonly one. As currentlytreat- Maranhao, Brazil (from the Field Museum of ed, the genusalso includes one additionaltax- Natural History,Chicago; hereafter FMNH). In on, S.s. bahiae,a yellow-bellied taxon from additionto the shortbill and broad,pale tips to northeasternBrazil. Hellmayr (1927) treated the rectrices,the six specimensfurther couldbe distinguishedfrom typical affinisby their dis- E-mail: [email protected] tinctly broader central rectricesand a lack of 57 58 ZIMMER,WHITTAKER, AND OREN [Auk, Vol. 118 any contrastingpale edging to those feathers specimensand tissue sampleswere deposited (Traylor 1982). Traylor noted that "ordinarily with the MPEG. We also located additional the close correlation of two such discrete and sitesof sympatrybetween the two vocaltypes. unrelated characters as the short bill and the colorationand shapeof the rectriceswould be METHODS strongevidence that we have two siblingspe- cies.I think that eventuallythis will prove to We made observations of Suiriri at various sites in be true,but the possibilitythat the short-billed Mato Grosso,Brazil (August and October1991, and birds may somehowbe relatedto the intergra- every Septemberfrom 1993 to 1999); Pernambuco, Brazil (eachJanuary from 1996to 1999,and February dation betweenaffinis and suiriri cannotbe ig- 1996);Goias, Brazil (January1996); and Amapa,Bra- nored at this time." He concludedby stating zil (February1998 and 1999).All measurementsused "most important,without field studiesof the in behavioraldata (e.g. distances,heights) are esti- various taxa, it is uselessto speculate." mates. Sexual identification of birds in the field was During the courseof severalyears of field basedon sex-specific,stereotyped displays or vocal- work at various sites in Brazil Zimmer and izations,the sexual specificityof which was con- Whittaker found that there were two markedly firmed by postmorteminspection of specimensthat different vocal types of yellow-bellied Suiriri, we collected.Mapped distributions(as they appear oneof whichwas relatively widespread, occur- in this paper) are basedentirely on label data from ring from Amapa to Bahia to Goias;and the specimensthat the seniorauthor examined, on more recentrecords documented by tape recordings,and other which we knew only from the Chapada on our own collectingsites. Those localities were en- dosGuimaraes region of Mato Grosso.The first tered into a sector-basedGeographic Information type includedbirds that, by both distribution System(Isler 1997)and mappedby Morton Isler. and morphologicalcharacters, clearly were as- We assume that vocalizations of Suiriri, like those signableto S.s. bahiae,as well asbirds that ap- of other suboscines,are mostly or entirelyinherited peared to be typical of S.s. affinis.The second (Kroodsma1984, 1989; Kroodsma and Konishi1991), type was distinctive not only for its vocaliza- and as such,provide potentiallyinformative char- tions, but also for its dramatic wing-flapping acters for systematicstudy as in other suboscines displaysthat invariablyaccompanied all terri- (Lanyon 1978, Isler et al. 1997, Krabbeand Schulen- torial duetsby mated pairs (seebelow). Recip- berg 1997).To analyzevocalizations, we assembled recordingsof all namedtaxa of Suiririfor compari- rocal playback experimentsconducted at mul- sonwith our own recordings.Locations and record- tiple sitesrevealed that the two vocaltypes did istsfor all recordingsexamined are listedbelow. For not respondto one anothers'vocalizations. In comparison,vocalizations were categorizedas loud- September1998, we found the two vocaltypes songs,duets, or calls."Loudsongs" were consistent- occurring syntopically near Cuiaba, Mato ly patternedmultinote vocalizations (Isler et al. 1997) Grosso,Brazil. Close comparison revealed that givenby an individualbird, seeminglyin the context onevocal type wasnoticeably short-billed com- of territorialadvertisement. Those were givenindi- pared to the otherand had a distinctbuffy ter- vidually by both sexes,but most frequentlywere in- minal fringe to the tail, and that the birdswere corporatedinto duets. "Duets" involved simulta- alwaysassortatively paired with their own vo- neoussinging by a pair of Suiriri, and consistedof typical loudsongsof both sexes,combined with oth- cal and morphologicaltypes. er calls.Vocalizations categorized as callsmost often Suspectingthat the short-billedbirds repre- were structurally simple (typically involving only sentedthe samebirds as the anomalousspeci- oneor a few notes;exceptions are notedbelow) and mens reported by Zimmer and Traylor, we re- usually were given in the contextof contactvocali- turned to the Cuiabaregion in September1999 zationsbetween mates or family members.Our re- with Dionisio Pimentel of the Museu Paraense cordingswere made with SonyTCM-5000 tape re- Emilio Goeldi, Belem (hereafter MPEG) and corders and Sennheiser ME-80, ME-66, and MKH-70 collected10 specimensof eachvocal type. Prior shotgunmicrophones. Spectrograms were madeby to collecting,we madevoucher tape-recordings PhyllisIsler on a MacintoshG4 computerusing Ca- nary version1.2.1 (BioacousticsResearch Program, of eachbird (all recordingsto be archivedat the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, New Library of Natural Sounds,Cornell Laboratory York).Canary parameterswere standarddefault ex- of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York; hereafter ceptthat frame overlapused was >-96.88%. LNS). Tissue samplesalso were preservedfor Playback experimentswere conductedto deter- molecular analysis of genetic differences.All minereactions of Suiririof eachtype to vocalizations January2001] NewFlycatcher from Cerrado Region