The Paramo Tapaculo is a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the Formicariidae

Formicariidae

The Formicariidae, formicariids, or ground antbirds are a family of smallish passerine birds of subtropical and tropical Central and South America. They are between 10 and 20 cm in length, and are related to the antbirds, Thamnophilidae, and gnateaters, Conopophagidae...

 family. It is found at altitudes of 2600 to 4000 m (8,530.2 to 13,123.4 ft) in the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 of northern Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 and southern Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 (Cordillera Central). It has traditionally been treated as a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of S. canus

Paramillo Tapaculo

The Paramillo Tapaculo is a species of bird in the Formicariidae family. It is endemic to humid highland scrub in the Cordillera Occidental in Colombia. It has traditionally included the more widespread S. opacus as a subspecies, but under the common name Paramo Tapaculo...

, but the two have different voices, leading to them being split

Lumpers and splitters

Lumping and splitting refers to a well-known problem in any discipline which has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper/splitter problem occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature,...

 into separate species in 2010.

The Paramo Tapaculo resembles other Scytalopus

Scytalopus

Scytalopus is a genus of small passerine birds belonging to the tapaculo group. They are found in South and Central America from Tierra del Fuego to Costa Rica, but are absent from the Amazon Basin. They inhabit dense vegetation at or near ground-level and are mainly found in mountainous regions,...

tapaculos, being overall dark grey with brown to the lower flanks. Females are dull brown above. The subspecies androstictus was described in 2010 from south-eastern Ecuador and northern Peru. Unlike the nominate subspecies, most male androstictus have white to the primary coverts

Covert (feather)

A covert feather on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts, which as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail.- Wing-coverts :...

. If following the phylogenetic species concept, androstictus would be a separate species, but under the biological species concept it "only" qualifies as a subspecies.

The Paramo Tapaculo has not been rated by the IUCN, but when treated as conspecific with S. canus the "combined species" is considered Least Concern

Least Concern

Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...

. As the Paramo Tapaculo generally is common to fairly common and occurs in several protected areas, it is unlikely to be threatened.