New World oriole

New World orioles are a group of birds in the genus Icterus of the blackbird family. Unrelated to Old World orioles of the family Oriolidae, they are strikingly similar in size, diet, behavior, and strongly contrasting plumage. As a result, the two have been given the same vernacular name.

This article is about the New World bird family. For the Old World birds, see Old World oriole.

New World orioles
Baltimore oriole, Icterus gala
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Icteridae
Genus: Icterus
Brisson, 1760
Type species
Oriolus icterus (Venezuelan troupial)
Linnaeus, 1766
Species

See text

Males are typically black and vibrant yellow or orange with white markings, females and immature birds duller. They molt annually. New World orioles are generally slender with long tails and a pointed bill. They mainly eat insects, but also enjoy nectar and fruit. The nest is a woven, elongated pouch. Species nesting in areas with cold winters are strongly migratory, while subtropical and tropical species are more sedentary.

The name "oriole" was first recorded (in the Latin form oriolus) by the German Dominican friar Albertus Magnus in about 1250, which he stated to be onomatopoeic, from the song of the European golden oriole.

One of the species in the genus, Bahama oriole, is critically endangered.

The genus Icterus was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the Venezuelan troupial as the type species.[1][2] The name is the Latin word for a yellow bird, probably the Eurasian golden oriole.[3]

The genus name Icterus, as used by classical authors, referred to a bird with yellow or green plumage. Icterus is from Greek ἴκτερος (íkteros, “jaundice”); the ictērus was a bird the sight of which was believed to cure jaundice, perhaps the Eurasian golden oriole.[4] Brisson re-applied the name to the New World birds because of their similarity in appearance.[5]

Species list

The genus contains 33 extant species.[6]

ImageCommon NameScientific nameDistribution
Scott's orioleIcterus parisorumSouthwestern United States and south to Baja California Sur and central Mexico.
Yellow-backed orioleIcterus chrysaterBelize, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela.
Audubon's orioleIcterus graduacaudawesternmost range extends from Nayarit south to southern Oaxaca, whereas the eastern range stretches from the lower Rio Grande valley to northern Querétaro
Jamaican orioleIcterus leucopteryxJamaica and on the Colombian island of San Andrés
Orange orioleIcterus auratusthe Yucatán Peninsula and far northern Belize
Altamira orioleIcterus gularissubtropical lowlands of the Mexican Gulf Coast and northern Central America, the Pacific coast and inland
Yellow orioleIcterus nigrogularisnorthern South America in Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, the Guianas and parts of northern Brazil, (northern Roraima state, and eastern Amapá)
Bullock's orioleIcterus bullockiias far north as British Columbia in Canada and as far south as Sonora or Durango in Mexico
Streak-backed orioleIcterus pustulatusCosta Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and an occasional visitor to the Southwestern United States
Black-backed orioleIcterus abeilleiMexico.
Baltimore orioleIcterus galbulaCanadian Prairies and eastern Montana in the northwest eastward through southern Ontario, southern Quebec and New Brunswick and south through the eastern United States to central Mississippi and Alabama and northern Georgia.
Yellow-tailed orioleIcterus mesomelassouthern Mexico to western Peru and northwestern Venezuela
Spot-breasted orioleIcterus pectoralisCosta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
White-edged orioleIcterus graceannaeEcuador and Peru.
Campo troupialIcterus jamacaiinortheastern Brazil
Venezuelan troupialIcterus icterusColombia, Venezuela, and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, and Puerto Rico.
Orange-backed troupialIcterus croconotusGuyana, Brazil, Paraguay, and eastern Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru
Bar-winged orioleIcterus maculialatusEl Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.
Black-vented orioleIcterus wagleriEl Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the United States.
Hooded orioleIcterus cucullatusBaja California Sur, the Mexican east coast, and Belize.
Black-cowled orioleIcterus prosthemelaseastern half of mainland Central America.
Orchard orioleIcterus spuriusUnited States, Mexico
Cuban orioleIcterus melanopsisisland of Cuba and the neighboring Isla de la juventud
Bahama orioleIcterus northropithe Bahamas.
Martinique orioleIcterus bonanaMartinique, French West Indies
Puerto Rican orioleIcterus portoricensisPuerto Rico
Montserrat orioleIcterus oberiLesser Antilles of the West Indies,
Saint Lucia orioleIcterus laudabilismain island of St. Lucia
Hispaniolan orioleIcterus dominicensisHispaniola.
Orange-crowned orioleIcterus auricapilluseastern Panama, Colombia and Venezuela.
Variable orioleIcterus pyrrhopterusArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Epaulet orioleIcterus cayanensisBolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname.

One extinct species, the Talara troupial (Icterus turmalis), is known from fossil remains recovered from the Talara Tar Seeps of northwestern Peru, and likely went extinct during the late Quaternary. It may have been a close associate of Pleistocene megafauna communities, and may have gone extinct following their collapse in populations.[7]

References
  1. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1 p. 30, Vol. 2 p. 85.
  2. Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1968). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 14. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 149.
  3. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 201–202. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. ictĕrus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  5. Newton, Alfred (1911). "Icterus" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  6. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2018). "Oropendolas, orioles, blackbirds". World Bird List Version 8.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  7. Steadman, David W.; Oswald, Jessica A. (July 2020). "New species of troupial (Icterus) and cowbird (Molothrus) from ice-age Peru". The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 132 (1): 91–103. doi:10.1676/1559-4491-132.1.91. ISSN 1559-4491.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Icterus.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.