Cuban Grassquit
Phonipara canora
A small flocking bird of scrub and grasslands. Note the dark face (black in males and gray in females) that is surrounded by a swirl of yellow from behind each eye, down the sides of the neck, and across the chest. The male Yellow-faced Grassquit has a passing resemblance, but the throat is yellow and the chest is black. Female Yellow-faced and Black-faced Grassquits are of similar size and color but lack the yellow neck and chest seen on Cuban Grassquits. The call is a sharp musical chip and the song is a rather high-pitched twitter.
Taxonomy
The Cuban grassquit was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin under the binomial name Loxia canora. He based his description on the "Brown Cheeked Grosbeak" that had been described by Peter Brown in 1776. Brown's illustration was from a live bird belonging to Marmaduke Tunstall which Brown mistakenly believed had come from Mexico. It only occurs in Cuba. This species was formerly placed in the genus Tiaris, but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Tiaris was polyphyletic. In the resulting reorganization, the Cuban grassquit was moved to the resurrected genus Phonipara that had been introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek phōnēs meaning "vocal" with the Latin parus meaning "tit". The specific epithet conora is from Latin canorus meaning "melodious". The Cuban grassquit is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.<p>Although traditionally placed with the buntings and New World sparrows in the family Emberizidae, molecular genetic studies have shown that the Cuban grassquit is a member of the subfamily Coerebinae within the tanager family Thraupidae.
- Scientific name
- Phonipara canora
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Thraupidae
- Genus
- Phonipara
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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