Crested Black Tyrant (Knipolegus lophotes) - 16Aug2022

Here is an example of a bird that looks very similar to another bird that lives thousands of miles apart and taxonomically are from different lineages. It's norther doppelgänger is the Phainopepla which lives in the American southwest and Mexico.  The Crested Black Tyrant on the other hand lives in south east South America mostly in Brazil but also in Paraguay and Uruguay.   It is hypothesized that this usually occurs when one species is adapting through mimicry in similar habitats but is unlikely that this is the driver for these two species that live so far apart.  We had ours smack dab in the middle of South America in the Pantanal in Brazil.  In fact we saw this one right near the marker for the geographic center of South America.