Donacobiidae

The black-capped donacobius (''Donacobius atricapilla'') is a conspicuous, vocal South American bird. It is distributed across the northern half of South America.

Taxonomy

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the black-capped donacobius in his ''Ornithologie'' based on a specimen that he mistakenly believed had been collected from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name ''Le merle a test noire de Cap de Bonne Espérance'' and the Latin ''Merula Atricapilla Capitis Bonae Spei''. The two stars (**) at the start of the section indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the black-capped donacobius. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name ''Turdus atricapilla'' and cited Brisson's work. The type location was subsequently corrected to eastern Brazil. The specific name ''atricapilla'' is Latin for "black-haired" from ''ater'' "black" and ''capillus'' "hair of the head". This species is now placed in the genus ''Donacobius'' that was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1831. The name of the genus is from Ancient Greek ''donakos'' "reed" and ''bios'' "mode of life".

The black-capped donacobius is the only member of the genus ''Donacobius'', but its familial placement has gone through several changes. In the 19th century, it was placed in the Turdidae, and in the 20th century, moved to the Mimidae. It had various English names, including the "black-capped mockingthrush". In the 1980s and 1990s, suggestions that it was a type of wren ( Troglodytidae) were accepted by the South American Classification Committee (SACC), the American Ornithological Society (AOS) and most other authorities. Since at least 2018, the major taxonomic schemes place it in its own family, Donacobiidae, and list it following the reed warblers of the family Acrocephalidae.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 15, 2019Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, J. F. Pacheco, C. Ribas, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, D. F. Stotz, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 8 June 2020. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved June 9, 2020HBW and BirdLife International (2018) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 3. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v3_Nov18.zipChristidis et al. 2018. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, version 4.1 (Downloadable checklist). Accessed from https://www.howardandmoore.org .

Habitat

Black-capped donacobiuses are common in a wide range of Amazonian wetlands, including oxbow lakes, riparian zones, and other areas with tall dense aquatic or semi-aquatic vegetation. A third of the species range is outside the Amazon Basin, from Panama, northern Colombia, and western Venezuela, the Orinoco River system of Venezuela, to southeast coastal and inland Brazil, and neighboring countries southward, Paraguay, and extreme northern Argentina.

Behavior

Mating for life, pairs of black-capped donacobiuses can be seen frequently and throughout the day atop thickets of dense lakeside or streamside vegetation. They often will engage in antiphonic dueting. Adult offspring will remain with their parents and help raise siblings from subsequent nesting periods in a system of cooperative breeding.

References

External links

Black-capped Donacobius videos
on the Internet Bird Collection
Photo
sunbirdtours(Venezuelan species)
Photo-Medium Res
chandra.as.utexas.edu

VIREO ttp://vireo.acnatsci.org/species_image.php?species=Donacobius+atricapilla Photo-High Res

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q1424769, from2=Q10756627, from3=Q14626808

Sylvioidea
Birds of Brazil
Birds of Colombia
Birds of Venezuela
Birds of the Guiana Shield
Birds of Paraguay
Birds of the Amazon rainforest
Birds of the Pantanal
Birds of Trinidad and Tobago
Birds described in 1766
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot