Clytoctantes

Clytoctantes
Clytoctantes
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Thamnophilidae
Genus: Clytoctantes
Elliot, 1870
Species

see text.

Clytoctantes is a South American genus of bird in the Thamnophilidae family. Males are grey or black and females are mainly rufous. The stubby, hefty bill has a distinctly upcurved lower mandible and a straight culmen (a large version of the bills of the recurvebills), which possibly is a modification for opening bamboo stems in their search for insects. The two species were feared to be extinct or nearly so, until both were rediscovered in 2004.

Species

The name "bushbird" is shared with the rather similar, but smaller-billed Black Bushbird from the monotypic genus Neoctantes.