Blue Dacnis
Dacnis cayana
Small active warblerlike tanager with sharply pointed bill. Male blue with thin black mask, black throat and back. Female also distinctive, body entirely lime green with mostly blue head. Usually seen in pairs or small groups in the canopy of lowland and foothill forests, edges, and secondary growth. Often follows mixed feeding flocks. Feeds on fruit.
Identification
The blue dacnis is 12.7 cm long and weighs 13 g. Despite its alternative name, it is not a honeycreeper, which are longer-billed. The adult male is turquoise blue with a black around the eyes, and on the throat and back. The wings and tail are black, edged with turquoise. The female and immature are mainly green with a blue head, paler green underparts and green-edged brown wings. The blue dacnis's call is a thin tsip.
Taxonomy
In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue dacnis in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne in French Guiana. He used the French name Le Pepit bleu de Cayenne and the Latin name Sylvia cayanensis caerulea. 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 blue dacnis. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Motacilla cayana and cited Brisson's work. The specific name cayana is from Cayenne. This species is now placed in the genus Dacnis that was introduced in 1816 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier with the blue dacnis as the type species.<p>Eight subspecies are recognised:<p>The purplish honeycreeper (Chlorophanes purpurascens), a bird from Venezuela known only from the type specimen, is considered to be an intergeneric hybrid between the green honeycreeper and either the red-legged honeycreeper or the blue dacnis.
- Scientific name
- Dacnis cayana
- Authority
- (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Thraupidae
- Genus
- Dacnis
Range and habitat
The blue dacnis occurs in forests and other woodlands, including gardens and parks.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The bulky cup nest is built in a tree and the normal clutch is of two to three grey-blotched whitish eggs. The female incubates the eggs, but is fed by the male.<p>These are social birds which eat mainly insects gleaned from foliage, flowers or bromeliads. Fruit (such as licorice, Cecropia, Clusia, Miconia, berries, figs and bananas) is often taken and usually swallowed whole, but nectar is rarely consumed.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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