The red-crowned ant tanager (Habia rubica) is a medium-sized passerine bird from tropical America. It is the only species now placed in the genus Habia. This species was long placed with the tanagers (Thraupidae), but it is actually closer to the cardinals (Cardinalidae).
Taxonomy
The red-crowned ant tanager was formally described in 1817 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. He placed it in the genus Saltator (which he misspelled as Staltator) and coined the binomial name Saltator rubicus. He specified the locality as Paraguay. The specific epithet is from Medieval Latin rubicus meaning "reddish". The red-crowned ant tanager is now the only species placed in the genus Habia that was introduced in 1840 by Edward Blyth. The genus name is a word used for various finches and tanagers in the Guarani language of Paraguay.
There are 17 recognised subspecies:
It is a shy but noisy bird. Its call is a rattle followed by a musical pee-pee-pee.