The red-billed pied tanager (''Lamprospiza melanoleuca'') is a species of bird in the family

Mitrospingidae The Mitrospingidae is a family of passerine birds. It consists of three genera and four species. The family is found in South America and southern Central America. The family was identified in 2013, and consists of birds that have been traditiona ...

. It is found in

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

.Hilty, S. (2020). Red-billed Pied Tanager (''Lamprospiza melanoleuca''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.rbptan1.01 retrieved May 14, 2021 Placed in family

Thraupidae The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family (biology), family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12 ...

, the "true" tanagers, for over two centuries, the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

reclassified this species to

in 2018.

Taxonomy and systematics

French ornithologist

Louis Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected ...

described the red-billed pied tanager as ''Saltator melanoleucus'' in 1817. In 1823, English ornithologist John Latham called it the divaricated tanager, having seen a specimen in Lord Stanley's collection. French naturalist

René Lesson René Primevère Lesson (20 March 1794 – 28 April 1849) was a French surgery, surgeon, natural history, naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist. Biography Lesson was born at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, Rochefort, and entered the Naval ...

called it ''Psaris habia'' in his work ''Centurie zoologique''. English ornithologist

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoology, zoologist and author, and head of the Ornithology, ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, London f ...

followed on by placing in the genus ''Tityra'' as ''T. habia'' in his ''Genera of Birds''. German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. He worked at the bird collections of the Natural History Museum in Berlin becoming its first curator of birds in 1850. He founded the ''Journal für Ornithologie ...

defined the genus ''Lamprospiza'' in 1847, giving it the binomial name of ''Lamprospiza habia''. Finally English zoologist

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an England, English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological ...

gave it its current name in 1856, synonymising the species descriptions to date. The red-billed pied tanager and the three other species in family Mitrospingidae were previously placed in family

, the "true" tanagers. A 2013 publication detailed how they did not belong there and proposed the new family for them. The North and South American Classification Committees of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

accepted the new placement in July 2017 and March 2019, respectively.R. Terry Chesser, Kevin J. Burns, Carla Cicero, Jon L. Dunn, Andrew W. Kratter, Irby J. Lovette, Pamela C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., James D. Rising, Douglas F. Stotz, and Kevin Winker. "Fifty-eighth supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s ''Check-list of North American Birds''". ''The Auk'' 2017, vol. 134:751-773 retrieved July 7, 2017Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 19 January 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 19, 2021 The

(IOC) followed suit in January 2018. The red-billed pied tanager is the only member of its genus and has no subspecies.

Description

The red-billed pied tanager is long and weighs . The male's head and upper parts are glossy blue-black, its throat and chest black, and the rest of the underparts white. The female is similar but the nape, back, and rump are gray. Both have the eponymous red bill. The juvenile is quite different; it has a black bill and head. Its upper back is white and the lower back mottled black and white. The underparts are white with some black mixed in.

Distribution and habitat

The red-billed pied tanager is found in the upper

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, 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 ...

from eastern and southeastern Peru and northern Bolivia east to central Brazil and north into

the Guianas The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, formerly British, Dutch, and French Guiana respectiv ...

. There it inhabits the

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

and emergent trees of humid '' terra firme'' forest up to about elevation. It can also be found on the edges of the forest.

Behavior

Feeding

The red-billed pied tanager's diet includes berries, seeds, beetles, and ''

Cecropia ''Cecropia'' is a Neotropical genus consisting of 61 recognized species with a highly distinctive lineage of dioecious trees. The genus consists of pioneer trees in the more or less humid parts of the Neotropics, with the majority of the speci ...

'' catkins. It typically forages in groups of three to eight individuals that may associate with

mixed-species feeding flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s. It hops between branches and occasionally sallies out for flying prey.

Breeding

Very little has been published about the red-billed pied tanager's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

. A female was seen on a nest in Brazil's Amazonas state in February. Fledged young were seen in

Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – ) is one of the states of Brazil, the List of Brazilian states by area, third largest by area, located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible ...

in June and in Amazonas in September.

Vocalization

The red-billed pied tanager's song is complex, "a semi-musical but jumbled series". Flocks give a call rendered as "ééé-ééh...ééé-ééé-ééh...ééé-ééh-yuu...".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the red-billed pied tanager as being of Least Concern. It has a "reasonably large range, and no obvious threats."

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1587355

red-billed pied tanager The red-billed pied tanager (''Lamprospiza melanoleuca'') is a species of bird in the family Mitrospingidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru and Suriname.Hilty, S. (2020). Red-billed Pied Tanager (''Lamprospiza melano ...

Birds of the Guiana Shield Birds of the Amazon rainforest Birds of Peruvian Amazonia Birds of Brazil