The Cherry-throated Tanager was, until its dramatic rediscovery in 1998, a species shrouded in mystery. Prior to then, this arrestingly beautiful tanager, one of just two species of Nemosia, was known solely from three specimens collected in the 19th century (two of them subsequently lost) and sight records in the 1940s and mid-1990s. The first of these records was not published until decades later, while reported sightings in 1994 and 1995 were brief and unconfirmed. Since the 1990s, the Cherry-throated Tanager has been definitely recorded at just three localities, all in the highlands of southern Espírito Santo state, in southeast Brazil.
Surveys of adjacent areas, including in southern Minas Gerais (where the holotype is thought to originate) and northeastern Rio de Janeiro, have failed to locate additional sites for this obviously very rare bird. As a result, Nemosia rourei is currently listed as Critically Endangered. The Cherry-throated Tanager is typically observed in flocks, either solely comprising its own species, or frequently in mixed-species groups, usually in the canopy or subcanopy of good-quality tall ombrophilous Atlantic Forest, and is most easily detected by its relatively loud and distinctive vocalizations.
