The green oropendola (''Psarocolius viridis'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family

Icteridae Icterids () or New World blackbirds make up a family, the Icteridae (), of small to medium-sized, often colorful, New World passerine birds. Most species have black as a predominant plumage color, often enlivened by yellow, orange, or red. Th ...

. It is found in wooded habitats in the

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Boli ...

and

Guianas The Guianas, sometimes called by the Spanish loan-word ''Guayanas'' (''Las Guayanas''), is a region in north-eastern South America which includes the following three territories: * French Guiana, an overseas department and region of France * ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

, and is generally common. Uniquely among the

oropendola Oropendolas are a genus of passerine birds, ''Psarocolius'', in the New World blackbird family Icteridae. They were formerly split among two or three different genera and are found in Central and South America. All the oropendolas are large bir ...

s, the green oropendola has a pale bill with an orange tip. Male oropendola weigh around 400 grams, while females are in the 200 gram range. This is a common species and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. ...

Description

Psarocolius viridis -Diergaarde Blijdorp -upper body-8a

The male green oropendola grows to a length of about and the female about . The head, breast and back are pale olive green, the wings are greyish-green, and the rump and underparts are chestnut. The central feathers of the tail are black and the outer ones yellow. The beak has an orange tip, and its base and the adjoining areas of skin are yellowish. The irises are pale blue and there is an inconspicuous crest on the back of the head.

Distribution

''P. viridis'' has a very wide distribution in the tropical rainforests of South America. Its range includes Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

Ecology

This bird usually moves through the forest canopy in mixed species flocks. It is an omnivore, foraging for fruits and insects among the leaves and branches. By consuming whole fruits, it acts as a seed disperser. It is one of several birds that follow small groups of red-throated caracara (''Ibycter americanus'') through the canopy. The caracaras are specialist predators of

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...

nests, and the oropendolas have been observed following the group for several hours, feeding independently and not necessarily at the same level in the canopy nor on the same items of diet. Green oropendolas are gregarious, colonial birds and build long, bag-shaped nests that dangle from the branches of a tree. The birds are

polygamous Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marri ...

. The nests of green oropendolas are sometimes parasitised by the giant cowbird (''Molothrus oryzivorus'') which lays its eggs in their nests.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1301012 green oropendola Birds of the Amazon Basin Birds of the Guianas green oropendola Birds of Brazil Taxonomy articles created by Polbot