About Tangara icterocephala (Bonaparte, 1851)
The silver-throated tanager, scientifically named Tangara icterocephala (Bonaparte, 1851), is an average-sized Tangara tanager. On average, it measures 13 centimetres (5.1 in) long and weighs 22 grams (0.78 oz). This species has slight sexual dimorphism, where females have duller coloration than males. Males are primarily bright yellow, with a silvery-white throat that is bordered above by a black stripe running across the cheeks. Their back is yellow with black streaking, while their wings and tail are yellow with green edges. Males have brown irises, black beaks, and gray feet. Adult females have a similar appearance to males, but their plumage is duller and greener, and they may occasionally have faint dark mottling on the crown. Immature silver-throated tanagers are much duller and greener overall, with dusky wings, tail, back streaks, and cheek stripe, a gray throat, and darker green wing edging. Immatures retain this subadult plumage until the end of their first breeding season. This tanager is distributed from northern Costa Rica, through Panama, Colombia, and Peru, to southern Ecuador. It most often occurs at elevations between 600–1,800 m (2,000–5,900 ft), but can occasionally be found from 0–2,300 m (0–7,546 ft). It lives in mossy forests, montane evergreen forests, tropical lowland evergreen forests, forest edges, and tall secondary forests. It also occupies disturbed habitats that contain remnant trees and forest patches. In Costa Rica, it has been observed in clearings with fruit trees adjacent to forests, but it rarely leaves forested habitat in Colombia.
