Nesospingidae Puerto Rican Tanager
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Introduction
Only a few nests have ever been reported for the Puerto Rican Tanager Nesospingus speculiferus, endemic to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. But outside the breeding season, this species is often heard, though rarely seen, as it forages in dense vegetation. Unlike most species known as “tanagers,” these birds are solemnly clad in dusky gray-brown and white. Their voice hardly qualifies as a song, though they call often, usually with a harsh single note much like the “scolding” call of other species. These tanagers forage in small groups, often serving as the nuclear species for mixed-species foraging flocks. At night these flocks roost together, but there is still much to learn about this species’ social and reproductive behavior.
Habitat
The Puerto Rican Tanager lives mainly in humid foothill and montane forest, but also occurs in lower elevations in palm forests, coffee plantations, and thickets, from about 200 to 1400 m elevation.
Diet and Foraging
Puerto Rican Tanagers feed on a broad range of foods, from invertebrates (including insects, snails, and slugs) and small vertebrates (including lizards and frogs), to fruits and seeds.
Breeding
Very little information is available on the breeding biology of the Puerto Rican Tanager, and no detailed study has been undertaken. The nest of this species is a loosely woven open cup built of grass and feathers, which is typically placed in a small tree. Females lay 2 or 3 eggs. The roles of the male and female in parental care are unknown, as are the rates of offspring development.
Conservation Status
The Puerto Rican Tanager does not face any immediate conservation concerns.
Systematics History
The Puerto Rican Tanager is part of the New World radiation of nine-primaried oscines within the superfamily Passeroidea. Like several other newly recognized families in this group, the Puerto Rican Tanager was long thought to be part of the large, diverse Thraupidae (Burns 1997). The most recent molecular phylogenetic evidence suggests that Nesospingidae is part of a clade of Caribbean “tanagers” that are not part of the Thraupidae radiation; within this small clade, Nesospingus is likely sister to Spindalidae, and these together are in turn sister to Phaenicophilidae (Barker et al. 2013).
Conservation Status
Least Concern |
0%
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Near Threatened |
0%
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Vulnerable |
100%
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Endangered |
0%
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Critically Endangered |
0%
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Extinct in the Wild |
0%
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Extinct |
0%
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Not Evaluated |
0%
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Data Deficient |
0%
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Unknown |
0%
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Data provided by IUCN (2023) Red List. More information