Yellow-collared Chlorophonia

The yellow-collared chlorophonia is a chunky, short-tailed, stubby-billed bird. It is about 10 cm (3.9 in) long and weighs about 11 to 12 g (0.39 to 0.42 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males have a shiny emerald-green head with a conspicuous yellow eye-ring. Their throat and upper breast are the same green. Together they are bordered by a wide yellow collar with a thin chestnut line between the two colors on the side of the breast. Their mantle, back, upperwing coverts, and tail are shiny emerald-green and their rump and uppertail coverts bright yellow. Most flight feathers are dusky with green edges; their tertials are green. The center of their breast is bright yellow and the rest of their underparts are bright green. Adult females are duller and plainer than males. They are mostly grass-green including their tail. Most of their flight feathers are dusky with green edges and their tertials are grass-green. The center of their breast is faded yellow and the rest of their underparts are bright yellow. Both sexes have a grayish white iris, an orange to salmon-orange bill, and bright orange legs and feet; females' eye-ring, iris, and bill are not as bright as males'.

The yellow-collared chlorophonia has a disjunct distribution. Its main population is found on the west slope of the Andes of Colombia's Western Andes from east-central Chocó and southern Antioquia departments south into northern Ecuador as far as northern Cotopaxi Province. It was first documented in Panama in 1986. A small population is apparently established on and in the vicinity of Cerro Pirre in extreme eastern Panama's Darién Province. The species primarily inhabits the interior and edges of humid to very wet foothill and lower montane evergreen forest in the upper tropical and subtropical zones. It also occurs in mature secondary forest and appears to favor steep slopes. In Colombia it ranges in elevation between 200 and 1,800 m (700 and 5,900 ft) and in Ecuador mostly between 400 and 1,500 m (1,300 and 4,900 ft).

The yellow-collared chlorophonia feeds almost exclusively on small berries and other fruits but includes a few insects in its diet. It mostly forages in pairs or in groups of up to about seven birds that sometimes join mixed-species feeding flocks. Outside the breeding season it can gather in flocks of up to about 50 individuals that travel separately from mixed-species flocks. It forages mostly in the forest canopy.