The golden-crowned warbler (Basileuterus culicivorus) is a small insectivorous bird in the New World warbler family Parulidae. It has a large geographic range that extends from northeastern Mexico south to northern Argentina. The white-bellied warbler was formerly treated as a separate species but is now considered to be conspecific with the golden-crowned warbler.
The golden-crowned warbler was formally described in 1830 under the binomial name Sylvia culicivora by the German accountant Wilhelm Deppe in a price list of specimens that had been collected in Mexico by Wilhelm's brother Ferdinand Deppe.[2][3] The specific epithet combines the Latinculex, culicis meaning "midge" and -vorus meaning "eating".[4] The golden-crowned warbler is now one of 12 species placed in the genus Basileuterus that was introduced in 1848 by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis.[5] The genus name is from Ancient Greek βασιλευτερος/basileuteros meaning "more kingly".[6]
B. c. cabanisi Berlepsch, 1879 – northeast Colombia and northwest Venezuela
B. c. olivascensChapman, 1893 – north, northeast Venezuela and Trinidad
B. c. segrex Zimmer, JT & Phelps, WH, 1949 – south Venezuela, west Guyana and north Brazil
B. c. auricapilla (Swainson, 1838) – central, east Brazil
B. c. azarae Zimmer, JT, 1949 – southeast, south Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and north Argentina
B. c. viridescens Todd, 1913 – east Bolivia
B. c. hypoleucusBonaparte, 1850 – southwest Brazil and northeast Paraguay
The subspecies B. c. hypoleucus, with white underparts, was formerly considered to be a separate species, the white-bellied warbler.[7] It is now treated as a conspecific with the golden-crowned warbler based partly on evidence from a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2010 which found that B. c. hypoleucus did not form a monophyletic clade within the complex.[5][8]
Description
The golden-crowned warbler is 12.0–13.5cm (4.7–5.3in) in overall length. It has grey-green upperparts and bright yellow underparts. The head is grey with a black-bordered yellow crown stripe, a yellow or white supercilium and a black eyestripe. Sexes are similar, but the immature golden-crowned warbler is duller, browner and lacks the head pattern other than the eyestripe.[9]
The subspecies fall into four groups. The Central American culicivorus group (known as the stripe-crowned warbler) is essentially as the nominate described above, the southwestern cabanisi group (known as Cabanis's warbler) has grey upperparts and a white supercilium, the aureocapillus group (known as the golden-crowned warbler) of the southeast, has a white supercilium and orange-rufous crown stripe, and the single subspecies in the hypoleucus group (known as the white-bellied warbler) with white, not yellow, underparts that occurs in south central Brazil.[9]
The golden-crowned warbler feeds on arthropods, especially insects and spiders. Their song is a high thin pit-seet-seet-seet-seet, and the call is a sharp tsip.[10] It lays two to four rufous-spotted white eggs in a domed nest in a bank or under leaves on the forest floor. The eggs are incubated by the female for 10 to 12 days.[9] Parent birds will feign injury to distract potential nest predators.[10]
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