Cardinale crestato

Identificazione

The red-crested cardinal is a medium-sized species showing a red head, with a red bib and a short red crest that the bird raises when excited. Belly, breast and undertail are white, with a gray back, wings, and tail. Wing coverts are gray, but the primaries, secondaries, and rectrices show a darker gray. Juveniles are similar to the adults, but they show a dull brownish orange head and bib.<p>This species is very similar to a close relative, the red-cowled cardinal (P. dominicana). It is also similar to the yellow-billed cardinal (P. capitata), but the latter bird has a black throat, darker upper parts and a bright yellow bill.

Tassonomia

In 1776 the English illustrator John Frederick Miller included a hand-coloured plate of the red-crested cardinal in his Icones animalium et plantarum. He coined the binomial name Loxia coronata. The type locality was subsequently designated as Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. The red-crested cardinal is now one of six species placed in the genus Paroaria that was introduced in 1832 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. The genus name is from Tiéguacú paroára, a name for a small yellow, red and grey bird in the extinct Tupi language. The specific epithet coronata is Latin meaning "crowned"

Nome scientifico

Paroaria coronata

Autorità

(Miller, JF, 1776)

Ordine

Passeriformi

Famiglia

Thraupidae

Genere

Paroaria

Areale e habitat

This species can be found mainly in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul, southern part of the Pantanal, northern Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. It has also been introduced to Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Chile. In Brazil, it has been introduced to various places outside its historical range, as in the Tietê Ecological Park in São Paulo.<p>Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and heavily degraded former forest, at an elevation up to 500 metres (1,600 ft) above sea level. It often occurs close to rivers, marshes and lakes.

Migrazione

Resident species

Comportamento

This species mainly feed on seeds (of Chloris virgata, Eleusine tristachya, Setaria parviflora and Spergula villosa), fruits (of Celtis tala, Grabowskia duplicata, Holmbergia tweedii, Morus alba, and Sapium haematospermum), insects and small arthropods, generally searched for on the ground in pairs or small groups. Average lifespan is about 3.8 years.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

stable