Xenops is a genus in the bird family Furnariidae, the ovenbirds. They are found in Mexico, Central America and South America and tropical rain forest. They are small birds with a longish tail, a laterally flattened bill with an upturned tip (except in the slender-billed xenops), brown back and buff or rufous wing stripe. They forage for insects on bark, rotting stumps or bare twigs, moving mechanically in all directions on the trunk like a woodcreeper, but without using the tail as a prop.