La Selle Thrush

The La Selle thrush is 26 to 27 cm (10 to 11 in) long and weighs 88 to 110 g (3.1 to 3.9 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a mostly slate-black head with a bright yellow to orange eye-ring and a few white streaks on the ear coverts and throat. Their upperparts, wings, tail, and upper breast are slate-black. Their upper flanks are rusty red, their lower breast and sides rich rufous, and their belly and undertail coverts white. Adults of subspecies T. s. dodae have an olivaceous-brown back but are otherwise like the nominate. Both subspecies have a dark iris, a yellow to orange bill with a dark base, and dark gray to black legs and feet.

The La Selle thrush has a disjunct distribution. The nominate subspecies is found in southeastern Haiti's Chaîne de la Selle and east into the Baoruco Mountain Range in southwestern Dominican Republic. Subspecies T. s. dodae is found only in the Dominican Republic. There it is in the Sierra de Neiba and Cordillera Central. The species inhabits the understory of wet montane broadleaf evergreen forest and, at higher elevations, pine forest. In elevation it mostly ranges between 1,300 and 2,100 m (4,300 and 6,900 ft).

The La Selle thrush feeds on fruit, insects, and other invertebrates like earthworms. It forages mostly on the ground and sometimes does so in cultivated gardens near the edge of forest.