Are there any zoos keeping any of the South American Antbirds? These secretive birds have very interesting ecological relationships with army ant swarms, but I am not sure they actually need these to survive as they actually feed on invertebrates disturbed by the ants. I suspect studying them in captivity might be the only way to get detailed information on them.
Very intresting birds but I have to obmit that I've sofar never seen one alive ! At the moment I don't think they are being kept at any zoo ( at least not outside Latin-america ) but in the past a few species have been kept - at least in Europe. Zootierliste mentions 4 species which have been kept: -Chestnut-backed antshrike -Rufous-winged antshrike -White-shouldered fire-eye -Barred antshrike - with this species Frankfurt Zoo ( Germany ) even had some breeding-attemps in 1988 and 1994 - both however unsuccesfull . I'm also sure in earlier days they must have been imported in mixed shipments of other birds and for 1 species I'm completly sure because I talked with the dealer who imported them. It must be around 1980 - 1982 when I visited a dealer in the Netherlands who told me that he had 2 weeks ago recieved a large shipment of birds from Surinam and among the birds were some ( if I remember right 5 birds ) White-plumed antbirds. They were however in a bad condition and died all within 4-5 days .
Just came across a note that the Bronx Zoo - New York also kept an Antbird-species. During 1942 the zoo recieved a single Barred antshrike from Costa Rica. Don't know any more information about this bird, maybe an US-zoochatter can provide us with some more information (?).
Only a relatively small number of antbirds are obligate (i.e., always at ant swarms) and among the remaining many are not associated with ants at all. Several of these behave rather like North Hemisphere wrens (small, noisy, skulking) or jays (medium to large for a passerine, less skulking, predatory). The obligates are highly unlikely to survive in captivity and white-plumed mentioned vogelc's post is one of these. Other species mentioned in this thread have no real association with ant swarms, except the white-shouldered fire-eye that is somewhere in between; sometimes at ant swarms but not obligate. There are literally hundreds of studies of antbirds in the wild and in some species quite detailed information is available. This includes both obligate ant followers and others. I find them very interesting and would love to see some of them in zoos, but as a necessity for studies isn't really a valid argument. Unfortunately some of the IMO best looking are both quite skulking and obligate ant followers, but there are also decent looking and/or interesting species that are more outgoing ("semi-outgoing" is arguably more accurate) and not associated with ants, e.g., great antshrike, giant antshrike and barred antshrike. All common widespread species that in all probability would do fine in captivity. In earlier posts I've compared this to another South/Central American family, the furnariids incl. woodcreepers, where only the pale-legged (Pacific) hornero is in zoos. There are many other interesting species in the family and a few are quite remarbly looking. Tityridae is another noticeably absent South/Central American family and based on their behavior the unusual looking tityras would likely do fine in a zoo.
