Helmeted Manakin Gallery

One of the largest and most apparent of all the manakins in the neotropics, the Helmeted Manakin, or Antilophia galeata, is a flagship bird of gallery and deciduous forest in the Cerrado and Pantanal. The common name in Portuguese for the species, Soldadinho, can be translated literally as the little soldier, an apt monicker for the spiffy male whose territorial call is as fierce as a drill sergeant's whistle. The closely related and extremely localized Araripe Manakin is remarkably similar in behavior and appearance except the male's black plumage is almost entirely substituted by an ethereal white. Note the strong sexual dimorphism in the species as exhibited in the last photo of the drab, olive colored female.