Hymenops perspicillatus
Silhouette: Emily Willoughby · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
The spectacled tyrant (Hymenops perspicillatus) is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and as a vagrant to Peru. The spectacled tyrant was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla and coined the binomial name Motacilla perspicillata. Gmelin based his description on "Le clignot ou traquet à lunette" that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath the Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The spectacled tyrant is now the only species in genus Hymenops that was introduced in 1828 by the French naturalist René Lesson. The genus name is from Ancient Greek humēn meaning "skin" or "membrane" and ōps meaning "eye". The specific epithet perspicillatus is Modern Latin meaning "spectacled". Within the family Tyrannidae the spectacled tyrant is sister to the genus Knipolegus containing the black tyrants.
The spectacled tyrant has two subspecies, the nominate H. p. perspicillatus (Gmelin... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 2 | Nahuel Huapi National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 3 | Torres del Paine National Park | 🇨🇱 Chile | |
| 4 | Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park | 🇨🇱 Chile | |
| 5 | El Palmar National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rosario | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 2 | Buenos Aires | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 3 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 4 | Montevideo | 🇺🇾 Uruguay | |
| 5 | Cordoba | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 6 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 7 | São Paulo | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Spectacled Tyrant sighting in El Palmar National Park on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 149th most-seen of the 151 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Spectacled Tyrant in El Palmar National Park on a given day, against under 5% in February to December, the lowest months.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Spectacled Tyrant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
5th of 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Spectacled Tyrant sightings, El Palmar National Park ranks 5th at under 5%. The best odds are in Iberá National Park (Argentina, about 40%), Nahuel Huapi National Park (Argentina, about 20%) and Torres del Paine National Park (Chile, about 10%).
Same family: Tyrannidae
The closest relatives of the Spectacled Tyrant that you can see in El Palmar National Park (family Tyrannidae, Tyrant Flycatchers) are Cattle Tyrant (about 60%), Great Kiskadee (about 50%) and Tropical Kingbird (about 50%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Spectacled Tyrant is recorded against all the birds logged in El Palmar National Park (5 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
