The Hispaniolan palm crow (''Corvus palmarum'') is a relatively small

corvid Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, magpies, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Curre ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

island of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...

(in

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

and the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

) where it was formerly common but is now reduced in population.

Taxonomy

The Hispaniolan palm crow was formally described in 1835 under the binomial name ''Corvus palmarum'' by the German naturalist

Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg Duke Friedrich ''Paul Wilhelm'' of Württemberg (; 25 June 1797, in Pokój, Opole Voivodeship, Bad Carlsruhe, Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia – 25 November 1860, in Bad Mergentheim, Mergentheim, Kingdom of Württemberg) was a member of the List of ...

. The species 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 "unisp ...

: no

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised. This crow was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Cuban palm crow (''Corvus minutus''). Despite being

sympatric In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...

with the white-necked crow (''Corvus leucognaphalus'') on Hispaniola, it appears to be more closely related to the fish crow (''C. ossifragus'') of the

East Coast of the United States The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the region encompassing the coast, coastline where the Eastern United States meets the Atlantic Ocean; it has always pla ...

, as well as two smaller species, the Tamaulipas crow (''C. imparatus'') and Sinaloan crow (''C. sinaloae'') of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, than the white-necked crow, which is more related to the Cuban crow (''Corvus nasicus'') and the Jamaican crow (''Corvus jamaicensis''), the other two Caribbean corvids. This indicates two distinct arrivals of crows onto the island (with the ancestor of the two palm crows being a later arrival), and a resulting niche differentiation, similar to ''C. nasicus'' and ''C. minutus'' on

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. The following cladogram is based on phylogenetic study of the Corvidae by Knud Jønsson and collaborators that was published in 2012.

Habitat

The local name for the palm crow is cao in the Dominican Republic (where it is locally common, mainly in mountain pine forests and also around the area of Lake Enriquillo), which is onomatopoeic of the simple and repetitive call of this bird.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1586680 Birds described in 1835 Taxa named by Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg Birds of the Dominican Republic Birds of Haiti Corvus Endemic birds of Hispaniola