The crimson-collared tanager (''Ramphocelus sanguinolentus'') is a rather small Middle American

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5,00 ...

. It was first described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, its specific epithet from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

adjective ''sanguinolentus'', "bloodied", referring to its red plumage.

Taxonomy

This species is sometimes placed in a genus of its own as ''Phlogothraupis sanguinolenta'', and a genetic study suggests that it is less closely related to the other ''Ramphocelus'' tanagers than they are to each other. Its closest relative is the masked crimson tanager.

Description

Crimson-collared tanagers average long. The adult plumage is black with a red collar covering the nape, neck, and breast (remarkably similar to the pattern of the male crimson-collared grosbeak). All tail coverts are also red. The bill is striking pale blue and the legs are blue-gray. In adults, the irides are crimson, contrary to what is shown in Howell and Webb. Females average slightly duller than males, but are sometimes indistinguishable from them. Juvenile birds are similar except that the hood is dull red, the black areas are tinged with brown, and the breast is mottled red and black. Young birds also have a duller bill color. Crimson collared Tanager

Vocalizations are high-pitched and sibilant. There are several calls; one rendered as ''ssii-p'' is given both when perched and in flight. The song is jerky and consists of two-to-four-note phrases separated by pauses, ''tueee-teew, chu-chee-wee-chu, teweee''.

Distribution and habitat

The crimson-collared tanager ranges from southern

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and northern

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through the Atlantic slope of

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, to the highlands of western

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. It inhabits the edges of humid evergreen forests and second growth, where it is often seen in pairs at middle to upper levels.

Behaviour

Breeding

The nest is a cup built of such materials as moss, rootlets and strips of large leaves such as

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

or ''

Heliconia ''Heliconia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku (province), ...

'', and is placed at middle height in a tree at a forest edge. The female usually lays two eggs, pale blue with blackish spots.

Conservation

Because the species is not threatened, the population size is very large and the trend appears to be stable, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1589936 crimson-collared tanager Birds of Central America Birds of Belize crimson-collared tanager Taxa named by René Lesson