The blue mockingbird (''Melanotis caerulescens'') 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 Mimidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

, but has occurred as a vagrant in the southern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are subtropical or tropical dry

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucia ...

s, and heavily degraded former forest. The blue mockingbird is uniformly blue on its back, tail, wings, head and underbelly. This color is a result of feather structure rather than pigment, and therefore can look gray in the shade. It has a black "mask" surrounding its reddish-brown eyes. It has a rather long, slightly graduated tail, and dark blue streaks over its breast. Its bill is long, thin and slightly curved, and its legs and feet are black.

Taxonomy

When he first described the blue mockingbird in 1827,

William John Swainson William John Swainson FLS, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of ...

assigned it to the mockingbird'' ''Orpheus'', and when ''Orpheus'' became a junior synonym for the genus ''

Mimus ''Mimus'' is a bird genus in the family Mimidae. It contains the typical mockingbirds. In 2007, the genus ''Nesomimus'' was merged into ''Mimus'' by the American Ornithologists' Union. The genus name is Latin for "mimic". The following species ...

'', the species was moved accordingly. Not all authorities agreed; several placed it in the

thrush ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' is an American spy fiction television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a secret ...

'' ''

Turdus True thrushes are medium-sized mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the genus ''Turdus'' of the wider thrush family, Turdidae. The genus name ''Turdus'' is Latin for "thrush". The term "thrush" is used for many other birds of the family Tu ...

''. However, when

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857), was a French naturalist and ornithologist. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal Lucien Bonaparte. Life and career ...

moved it to its current genus '' Melanotis'' in 1850, most authorities quickly followed suit. There is disagreement as to whether it is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

or not. Among taxonomists who believe the species is polytypic, two subspecies are generally recognized. *''M. c. caerulescens'', the nominate subspecies, is found in the pine-oak zone of western Mexico, from southern Sonora south to the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as t ...

. *''M. c. longirostris'' is found only on the Tres Marías Islands, off the coast of western Mexico. The blue mockingbird has historically been considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

with the closely related blue-and-white mockingbird. Its species name is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

adjective ''caerǔlěus'', meaning "blue."

Description

Measuring in length, and weighing between , the blue mockingbird is a medium-sized

mimid __NOTOC__ The mimids are the New World family of passerine birds, Mimidae, that includes thrashers, mockingbirds, tremblers, and the New World catbirds. As their name ( Latin for "mimic") suggests, these birds are notable for their vocali ...

. Individuals of the subspecies ''caerulescens'' have a mean body mass slightly higher than that for individuals of the subspecies ''longirostris'' — for the former and for the latter.

Habitat and range

The blue mockingbird lives in a variety of woodlands: humid forest, riparian thickets, scrub, pine-oak forests and second growth. It is found at elevations ranging from lowlands to .

Behavior

Breeding

The blue mockingbird builds a

cup nest A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian b ...

of twigs and rootlets.

Food and feeding

The blue mockingbird is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...

; it feeds primarily on

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s, but also on some vegetable matter.

Conservation and threats

Because of its very large range and sizable population (estimated to number 500,000–4,999,999 individuals), the blue mockingbird is rated as a species 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. Th ...

'' by 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 natur ...

. There is, however, evidence that its overall numbers are dropping, primarily due to

habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological proces ...

and loss. The Mexican government has named the ''longirostris'' subspecies as a taxon of "special concern".

References

External links

Blue Mockingbird near Douglas, Arizona

Blue Mockingbird Images Arizona / El Dorado Park in Long Beach, California
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1587047 blue mockingbird Birds of Mexico Endemic birds of Mexico blue mockingbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Birds of the Sierra Madre Occidental Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur