Kleiner Fahlkehl-Baumsteiger

The cocoa woodcreeper (Xiphorhynchus susurrans) is a medium-sized, streaked woodcreeper in the family Furnariidae, native to the tropical forests, cacao plantations, and wooded areas of Central America and the northern Caribbean coast of South America, including Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, and the Central American isthmus from Honduras to Panama. Like other woodcreepers, it is a bark-gleaning insectivore, hitching upward along tree trunks and large branches with the support of stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers, systematically probing bark crevices, mosses, and epiphytes for insects, spiders, centipedes, and small lizards. The species' streaked brown plumage provides excellent camouflage against bark. It often joins mixed-species foraging flocks, particularly those following army ant swarms that flush invertebrates from leaf litter and bark. The cocoa woodcreeper inhabits both intact forest and shaded agricultural habitats — including the cocoa plantations from which it takes its name — showing some tolerance for modified land use where mature trees are retained. It has no natural presence in Norway; such country records are data artifacts. The species is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, with wide distribution and generally stable populations across its Caribbean and Central American range, though local declines may occur where forest cover is lost to intensive agriculture or urban development. Taxonomy of the Xiphorhynchus woodcreepers has been extensively revised with molecular phylogenetic data in recent decades.