The white-winged warbler (''Xenoligea montana''), also called the white-winged ground-warbler or Hispaniolan highland-tanager, is a

Vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened species, threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatened species, ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

of the family

Phaenicophilidae Phaenicophilidae is a family of passerine birds. It consists of three genera and four species, all endemic to Hispaniola, which have been traditionally placed in the families Thraupidae (''Phaenicophilus'') and Parulidae (''Xenoligea'', ''Microl ...

, the Hispaniolan tanagers. It is

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 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 ...

which is shared by

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The white-winged warbler is the only member of genus ''Xenoligea''. It was originally named ''Microligea montana'', sharing that genus with the green-tailed warbler (''M. palustris''), but was later recognized in its own genus. Those two species were originally placed in the New World wood warbler family

Parulidae The New World warblers or wood-warblers are a group of small, often colorful, passerine birds that make up the family Parulidae and are restricted to the New World. The family contains 120 species. They are not closely related to Old World warb ...

, but taxonomists were unsure they belonged there. DNA evidence published in the early 2010s showed they were not related to other wood warblers and in 2017, they were moved to the newly created family Phaenicophilidae. The two species in the genus ''

Phaenicophilus ''Phaenicophilus'' is a genus of birds that was formerly placed in the family Thraupidae, but is now placed in the Hispaniolan tanager family Phaenicophilidae. Its members are known as palm-tanagers. The genus ''Phaenicophilus'' was introduced ...

'' were also moved there from the "true" tanager 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 white-winged warbler 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 ...

, with no subspecies recognized.

Description

The white-winged warbler is and weighs . The sexes are alike and not particularly dimorphous. Adults have a gray head and neck, a white stripe from the beak to the eye above black lores, and white arcs above and below the eye. The back and rump is olive and the tail an almost-black dark gray with white spots on the tips of the outer feathers. The wings are also very dark gray with white on the

primaries Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...

that shows as a white patch on the closed wing. The underparts are white-washed with gray on the breast and flanks. Juveniles are similar to adults,z but with an overall brown cast to the adult colors.Hart, J. A. and C. C. Rimmer (2020). White-winged Warbler (''Xenoligea montana''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.whwwar1.01 retrieved October 10, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The white-winged warbler is limited to montane regions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In the former it is found in the

Cordillera Central Central Cordillera refers to the New Guinea Highlands. Cordillera Central, meaning ''central range'' in Spanish, may refer to the following mountain ranges: * Cordillera Central, Andes (disambiguation), several mountain ranges in South America ** ...

Sierra de Bahoruco The Bahoruco Mountain Range—Sierra de Bahoruco (or Sierra de Bahoruco) is a mountain range located in the far southwestern region of the Dominican Republic. It is within Pedernales, Independencia, Barahona, and Bahoruco Provinces. A large p ...

, and Sierra de Neiba. In Haiti it is found in the

Massif de la Hotte The Massif de la Hotte () is a mountain range in southwestern Haiti, on the Tiburon Peninsula, Haiti, Tiburon Peninsula west of the Petit-Goâve-Jacmel fault. About 2.5 million years ago, Massif de la Hotte was separated from the Massif de la Sel ...

on the western

Tiburon Peninsula The Tiburon Peninsula (), or simply "the Tiburon" (''le Tiburon''), is a region of Haiti encompassing most of Haiti's southern coast. It starts roughly at the southernmost point of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and extends westward near C ...

and possibly other parts of the peninsula closer to the Dominican Republic. The species inhabits several

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

that have in common a dense understory; they include mature humid broadleaf, pine-broadleaf, pine, and karst limestone forests, as well as

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

. In elevation it ranges between , but is most numerous above .

Lifespan

The white-winged warbler has a typical lifespan of three to six years. The oldest known individual was a bird that was banded in 1998 and recaptured in 2006.

Behavior

Movement

The white-winged warbler is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The white-winged warbler forages in vegetation at all levels of the forest. Its diet includes

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

s and seeds, especially those of '' Trema micrantha''. It frequently forages in small groups and also joins mixed-species foraging flocks with other members of the family Phaenicophilidae and the

Hispaniolan spindalis The Hispaniolan spindalis (''Spindalis dominicensis'') is one of four species of bird in family Spindalidae. It is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Taxonomy and systematics Hi ...

(''Spindalis dominicensis'').

Breeding

The white-winged warbler's nesting season is believed to be May to July. The only known nest was found in 2004. It was a cup of moss, leaves, lichen, and other plant material lined with small fibers and placed in a vine thicket above the ground. It contained two eggs. Nothing else is known about the species' breeding biology.

Vocalization

As of late 2022,

xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of bird calls and sounds of orthoptera and bats. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound recordings from more th ...

had only two recordings of white-winged warbler vocalization; the

Cornell Lab of Ornithology The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal media. It includes more than 71 million photographs, 2.6 million audio recordings, and over three hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ev ...

had several more. The species' song is "a series of high-pitched, squeaky notes that accelerate at the end". It also makes "a low-pitched ''tseep''" and "a low-pitched chattering ''suit..suit..suit..chir..suit..suit..suit..suit..chir..chi''" calls.

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 ...

originally assessed the white-winged warbler as Threatened but has classed it as Vulnerable since 1994. Its estimated population of 1500 to 7000 mature individuals is very fragmented and believed to be decreasing. Much of its range has been deforested, especially in Haiti. Predation by introduced

small Indian mongoose The small Indian mongoose (''Urva auropunctata'') is a mongoose species native to Iraq and northern India; it has also been introduced to several Caribbean and Pacific islands. Taxonomy ''Mangusta auropunctata'' was the scientific name proposed ...

s is also suspected to have contributed to the decline.