Great Rufous Woodcreeper

The great rufous woodcreeper is the largest, though not the heaviest, member of its subfamily. It is heavy-bodied with a long, heavy, somewhat decurved bill. It is 27 to 34 cm (11 to 13 in) long. Males weigh 120 to 150 g (4.2 to 5.3 oz) and females 120 to 162 g (4.2 to 5.7 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies X. m. major are almost entirely bright rufous-cinnamon. Their crown is slightly darker, their tail more chestnut, and their flight feathers reddish brown with dusky tips on the primaries. Their lores are blackish, their throat pale cinnamon with whitish buff streaks, and their underparts cinnamon with some buffy streaks on the breast and dusky brownish bars on the belly. Their iris is dark brown, rich red-brown, or crimson. Their bill is pale, from horn colored to horn-white, and their legs and feet dark grayish olive, greenish, or bluish gray. Juveniles are generally brighter overall than adults, especially on their underparts; they have stronger streaks on the breast but weaker ones on the crown. Subspecies X. m. remoratus has darker upperparts than the nominate, with less reddish underparts that are more heavily streaked and barred. X. m. castaneus is darker overall than the nominate, with a more brownish head, deeper chestnut upperparts, and less streaking and barring on the underparts. X. m. …

The subspecies of the great rufous woodcreeper are found thus:

X. m. remoratus, southwestern Mato Grosso state of Brazil X. m. castaneus, north-central and eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul state, and northwestern Argentina's Jujuy and Salta provinces X. m. estebani, northwestern Argentina's Tucumán Province X. m. major, western Paraguay and northern Argentina as far south as Córdoba and Santa Fe provinces The great rufous woodcreeper inhabits a variety of forest landscapes including dry woodland, semi-deciduous woodland, gallery forest, and Gran Chaco woodland. It also occurs in scrubby forest, cerrado, and wooded savanna. It favors the forest interior but occasionally occurs at its edges. In elevation it mostly occurs below 1,500 m (4,900 ft) but reaches as high as 1,800 m (5,900 ft).

The great rufous woodcreeper's diet is mostly insects, and it feeds on smaller amounts of other arthropods and small vertebrates. It mostly forages alone or in pairs, and occasionally in trios that are thought to be family groups. It is not known to follow army ant swarms or join mixed-species feeding flocks. It forages from the ground to the subcanopy, turning over leaf litter and hitching along trunks and branches, probing and gleaning for prey.