The barred antshrike (Thamnophilus doliatus) is a passerine bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found in the Neotropics in Mexico, every country in Central America, Trinidad and Tobago, and every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay. There is also one accepted record from southern Texas.

Taxonomy and systematics

The barred antshrike was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1764 and given the binomial name Lanius doliatus. The type locality was subsequently designated as Surinam. The specific epithet is from Neo-Latin doliatus meaning "barred".

The barred antshrike has these 12 subspecies:

What is now Chapman's antshrike (T. azrumae) was for a time treated as a subspecies of the barred antshrike.

The other subspecies of the barred antshrike differ from the nominate and each other thus:

  • T. d. intermedius: males are darker and have wider black bars than the nominate
  • T. d. nigricristatus: males' bellies have faint or no bars; females have unstreaked throats
  • T. d. nesiotes: similar to nigricristatus but more deeply colored
  • T. d. eremnus: similar to nigricristatus but more deeply colored
  • T. d. albicans: males have a white belly and few bars on their underparts; females have a white throat and pale underparts
  • T. d. nigrescens: very dark, with all black bars wider than the white ones
  • T. d. tobagensis: males have whiter underparts and females darker underparts than the nominate
  • T. d. radiatus: males have white spots on the forehead, whiter underparts than the nominate, and few to no black bars on the belly
  • T. d. difficilis: males are similar to radiatus with a whiter forehead and grayer underparts
  • T. d. capistratus: males have an entirely black crown and white spots on the tail. Females' throats are streaked, their breast is faintly barred, and their bellies are white. Both sexes have reddish or chestnut irises. (These differences led Assis et al to propose it as a species
  • T. d. intermedius: from San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas in east-central Mexico south on both sides of Central America through Costa Rica and possibly into Panama
  • T. d. nesiotes: Pearl Islands in the Gulf of Panama
  • T. d. eremnus: Coiba Island off the Pacific coast of western Panama
  • T. d. nigricristatus: Panama between eastern Chiriquí Province and western Guna Yala (San Blas)
  • T. d. albicans: Caribbean slope of northern and western Colombia and south in the Magdalena Valley
  • T. d. nigrescens: north-central Colombia east of the Andes and northwestern Venezuela north of the Andes
  • T. d. tobagensis: Tobago
  • T. d. doliatus: northeastern Colombia, Venezuela except its northwest but including Margarita Island, Trinidad, the Guianas, and northern Amazonian Brazil
  • T. d. difficilis: east-central Brazil roughly bounded by eastern Maranhão, eastern Mato Grosso, Goiás, and western Bahia
  • T. d. capistratus: eastern Brazil between Ceará, Bahia, and the Atlantic
  • T. d. radiatus: Amazonas Department in southeastern Colombia, northeastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern and eastern Bolivia, most of Paraguay, northern and northeastern Argentina, and western and south-central Brazil
  • T. d. cadwaladeri: Tarija Department in southern Bolivia

The barred antshrike inhabits a variety of landscapes with some geographical differences. In all areas it favors thick undergrowth rather than higher parts of the habitat and shuns the interior of mature forest. In Mexico, Central America, northern South America, and much of Peru it inhabits scrublands (especially second-growth), riparian thickets, the edges of dry woodlands and secondary forest, and even gardens. The exceptions are T. d. eremnus, which inhabits tropical deciduous forest on Coiba Island, T. d. tobagensis, which inhabits mature humid forest on Tobago, and T. d. capistratus, which primarily inhabits caatinga and restinga in eastern Brazil. In eastern Colombia the species often occurs on river islands, and in Ecuador, northern Peru, and much of Brazilian Amazonia it occurs almost exclusively on them. In Brazil it also is found on the "mainland" along rivers. In southern Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina it adds savanna to the scrub, secondary forest, and riverine belts. In Mexico, Central America, and Colombia it is found from sea level or near it to . In Venezuela it reaches though most records are below ; in Peru it reaches . In Ecuador it is found only below .