Summer tanager | |
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Male | |
Female | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Passeriformes |
Family: | Cardinalidae |
Genus: | Piranga |
Species: | P. rubra |
Binomial name | |
Piranga rubra | |
Range Summer breeding range Winter non-breeding range Migration | |
Synonyms | |
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The summer tanager (Piranga rubra) is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), it and other members of its genus are now classified in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). [2] The species's plumage and vocalizations are similar to other members of the cardinal family.
The summer tanager was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Fringilla rubra. [3] Linnaeus based his description on the "summer red-bird" described and illustrated by Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands which was published in 1729–1732. [4] Catesby gave the location as Carolina, Linnaeus specified America; the type location is now South Carolina. [5] The summer tanager is the type species of the genus Piranga that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1808. [6] [7] The genus name Piranga is from Tupi Tijepiranga, the name for an unknown small bird; the specific rubra is from Latin ruber meaning "red". [8]
Two subspecies are recognised: [7]
Image | Subspecies | Range |
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South Padre Island, Texas | P. r. cooperi Ridgway, 1869 | breeds in southwest USA and north Mexico, winters in south Mexico |
South Padre Island, Texas | P. r. rubra (Linnaeus, 1758) | breeds in east USA, winters in Central and North South America |
Adults have stout, pointed bills and measure 17 cm (6.7 in) in length and weigh a mean 30.1 g (1.06 oz), ranging from 25.8–33.6 g (0.99–1.19 oz). [9] [10] Wingspan ranges from 28 to 30 cm. [11] Adult males are rose red and similar in appearance to the hepatic tanager, although the latter has a dark bill; females are orangish on the underparts and olive on top, with olive-brown wings and tail. As with all other birds, all red and orange colorations are acquired through their diet.
The summer tanager has an American robin-like song, similar enough that novices sometimes mistake this bird for that species. The song consists of melodic units, repeated in a constant stream. The summer tanager's song, however, is much more monotonous than that of T. migratorius, often consisting of as few as three or four distinct units. It is clearer and less nasal than the song of the scarlet tanager. The summer tanager also has a sharp, agitated-sounded call pi-tuk or pik-i-tuk-i-tuk. [12]
The summer tanager's habitat varies regionally, with pine-oak and mixed forests preferred in the southeastern United States, and riparian lowlands preferred in the southwest. [13] These birds spend the breeding season across the southern United States and Northern Mexico, reaching as far north as Iowa and New Jersey in the east. [14] They overwinter in Mexico, Central America and northern South America. [14] This tanager is an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe.[ citation needed ]
These birds are often out of sight, foraging high in trees, sometimes flying out to catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects, but also regularly supplement their diets with fruit. [13] [15] Fruit of Cymbopetalum mayanum (Annonaceae) are an especially well-liked food in their winter quarters and birds will forage in human-altered habitat. [16] Consequently, these trees can be planted to entice them to residential areas, and they may well be attracted to bird feeders.[ citation needed ] Summer tanagers have also been reported to eat larger invertebrate prey, including snails and slugs; [17] there is additionally one report of an individual attempting to eat a vertebrate–a green anole–at a migratory stopover site in Mississippi. [18]
Summer tanagers build a cup nest on a horizontal tree branch anywhere from 4–45 feet from the ground. [19]
The white-cheeked pintail, also known as the Bahama pintail or summer duck, is a species of dabbling duck that is spottily distributed throughout South America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name.
The yellow-billed cuckoo is a member of the cuckoo family. Common folk names for this bird in the southern United States are rain crow and storm crow. These likely refer to the bird's habit of calling on hot days, often presaging rain or thunderstorms. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek kokkuzo, which means to call like a common cuckoo, and americanus means "of America".
The red-headed woodpecker is a mid-sized woodpecker found in temperate North America. Its breeding habitat is open country across southern Canada and the east-central United States. It is rated as least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of Endangered species, having been down-listed from near threatened in 2018.
The red-bellied woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker of the family Picidae. It breeds mainly in the eastern United States, ranging as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada. Though it has a vivid orange-red crown and nape it is not to be confused with the red-headed woodpecker, a separate species of woodpecker in the same genus with an entirely red head and neck that sports a solid black back and white belly. The red-bellied earns its name from the pale reddish tint on its lower underside.
The purple finch is a bird in the finch family, Fringillidae. It breeds in the northern United States, southern Canada, and the west coast of North America.
The eastern meadowlark is a medium-sized blackbird, very similar in appearance to sister species western meadowlark. It occurs from eastern North America to northern South America, where it is also most widespread in the east. The Chihuahuan meadowlark was formerly considered to be conspecific with the eastern meadowlark.
The Baltimore oriole is a small icterid blackbird common in eastern North America as a migratory breeding bird. It received its name from the resemblance of the male's colors to those on the coat-of-arms of 17th-century Lord Baltimore. Observations of interbreeding between the Baltimore oriole and the western Bullock's oriole Icterus bullockii, led to both being classified as a single species, called the northern oriole, from 1973 to 1995. Research by James Rising, a professor of zoology at the University of Toronto, and others showed that the two birds actually did not interbreed significantly.
The scarlet tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Until recently, it was placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), but it and other members of its genus are now classified as belonging to the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). The species' plumage and vocalizations are similar to other members of the cardinal family, although the Piranga species lacks the thick conical bill that many cardinals possess. The species resides in thick deciduous woodlands and suburbs.
The western tanager, is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), it and other members of its genus are classified in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). The species's plumage and vocalizations are similar to other members of the cardinal family.
The yellow-breasted chat is a large songbird found in America, and is the only member of the family Icteriidae. It was once a member of the New World warbler family Parulidae, but in 2017, the American Ornithological Society moved it to its own family. Its placement is not definitively resolved.
The white-lined tanager is a medium-sized passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is a resident breeder from Costa Rica south to northern Argentina and on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.
The swallow-tailed kite is a pernine raptor which breeds from the southeastern United States to eastern Peru and northern Argentina. It is the only species in the genus Elanoides. Most North and Central American breeders winter in South America where the species is resident year round.
The black-faced grassquit is a small bird. It is recognized as a tanager closely related to Darwin's finches. It breeds in the West Indies except Cuba, on Tobago but not Trinidad, and along the northern coasts of Colombia and Venezuela.
The blue grosbeak, is a medium-sized North American passerine bird in the cardinal family Cardinalidae. It is mainly migratory, wintering in Central America and breeding in northern Mexico and the southern United States. The male is blue with two brown wing bars. The female is mainly brown with scattered blue feathers on the upperparts and two brown wing bars.
Piranga is a genus of birds long placed in the tanager family, but now considered members of the family Cardinalidae. The genus name Piranga is from Tupi word tijepiranga, the name for an unknown small bird.
The hepatic tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), it and other members of the genus Piranga are now classified in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae).
The Greater Antillean bullfinch is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae.
The Cuban bullfinch is a species of songbird belonging to the genus Melopyrrha. It is a member of the tanager family Thraupidae falls under the subfamily Coerebinae, which also includes Darwin's finches.
The fulvous-crested tanager is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers.
The red-legged thrush is a species of bird in the family Turdidae. Native to the Caribbean, it is found in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. It formerly occurred on the Swan Islands, Honduras, but was extirpated there.