Blue-black Grassquit Volatinia jacarina Scientific name definitions
Text last updated March 1, 2013
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Species names in all available languages
Language | Common name |
---|---|
Catalan | menjagrà blau |
Dutch | Jacarinagors |
English | Blue-black Grassquit |
English (United States) | Blue-black Grassquit |
French | Jacarini noir |
French (France) | Jacarini noir |
German | Jacarinitangare |
Icelandic | Húmtittlingur |
Japanese | シコンヒワ |
Norwegian | jakarinispurv |
Polish | polniczka |
Portuguese (Brazil) | tiziu |
Portuguese (Portugal) | Tizui |
Russian | Якарина |
Serbian | Jakarina strnadica |
Slovak | jakarína tmavá |
Spanish | Semillero Volatinero |
Spanish (Argentina) | Volatinero |
Spanish (Chile) | Negrillo |
Spanish (Costa Rica) | Semillerito Negro Azulado |
Spanish (Ecuador) | Espiguero Negriazulado |
Spanish (Honduras) | Semillero Azul-Negruzco |
Spanish (Mexico) | Semillero Brincador |
Spanish (Panama) | Semillerito Negriazulado |
Spanish (Paraguay) | Volatinero |
Spanish (Peru) | Semillerito Negro Azulado |
Spanish (Spain) | Semillero volatinero |
Spanish (Uruguay) | Volatinero |
Spanish (Venezuela) | Semillero Chirrí |
Swedish | jakarinitangara |
Turkish | Lacivert Tangara |
Ukrainian | Якарина |
Volatinia jacarina (Linnaeus, 1766)
Definitions
- VOLATINIA
- jacarina / jacarini / jacarinia
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Introduction
The Blue-black Grassquit is a common and widespread species occupying a variety of open habitats from weedy fields to second growth throughout much of the neotropics from Mexico south through northern Chile and northern Argentina. Males sing conspicuously from fences and grass stalks, hurtling their entire body into the air with each song. During the nonbreeding season, the species form flocks that can sometimes number a few hundred individuals.
Field Identification
8·7–10·9 cm; 8–12 g. Tiny passerine, having longish conical bill with slightly and evenly curved culmen. Male nominate race has head, neck, upperparts and underparts black with dark blue iridescence (in fresh plumage, often narrow brown tips of feather); flight-feathers and tail matt black (lacking iridescence), upperwing-coverts and tertials iridescent like body; patch of white on axillaries and underwing-coverts and at bases of remiges (normally visible only during display), rest of underwing black; iris brown; upper mandible blackish, lower mandible mostly pale grey to horn-coloured; legs grey to greyish-flesh or plumbeous-horn. Female is warm brown, darker above than below, crown, mantle and back very indistinctly streaked, nape and hindneck unstreaked, rump and uppertail-coverts plain warm brown, lacking contrast with back; wings and tail brown, median and greater upperwing-coverts edged brown or buff-brown, paler tips forming two indistinct wingbars, tertials also edged buffy; outer tail feathers tipped buff when fresh; warm buff below (sometimes a cinnamon wash on breast), breast with loose streaks forming distinct streaked breastband that continues to flanks, contrasting with unstreaked throat and belly. Juvenile resembles female, but with darker wings and tail, and coarser and more extensive streaking on underparts; through first winter young male gains blackish feathers in patchy manner throughout body and head, creating patchy calico pattern of streaky brown and black, which is distinctive. Race splendens has reduced or little white on axillaries; peruviensis is similar to previous, but has more white on axillaries, flight-feathers brownish (instead of blackish), also retains brown immature male plumage for longer time than other races.
Systematics History
Editor's Note: This article requires further editing work to merge existing content into the appropriate Subspecies sections. Please bear with us while this update takes place.
Proposed race atronitens (described from Campeche, in SE Mexico) is synonymized with splendens. Three subspecies generally recognized.Subspecies
Volatinia jacarina splendens Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Volatinia jacarina splendens (Vieillot, 1817)
Definitions
- VOLATINIA
- jacarina / jacarini / jacarinia
- splendens
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Volatinia jacarina peruviensis Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Volatinia jacarina peruviensis (Peale, 1849)
Definitions
- VOLATINIA
- jacarina / jacarini / jacarinia
- peruana / peruanum / peruanus / peruvia / peruviana / peruvianus / peruviensis
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Volatinia jacarina jacarina Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Volatinia jacarina jacarina (Linnaeus, 1766)
Definitions
- VOLATINIA
- jacarina / jacarini / jacarinia
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Distribution
Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.
Habitat
Movement
Diet and Foraging
Diet mostly seeds, especially of grasses (in genera Paspalum and Panicum); also a few insects and berries, and Cecropia protein corpuscles. Forages on ground; also picks seeds from grass-heads. In pairs during breeding; at other times in flocks, sometimes large ones, and often associated with other seed-eaters.
Sounds and Vocal Behavior
Song an emphatic metallic “eee-slick”, or “bzeé-eep”, or buzzy “b-zeer”, often given during flight display just before alighting.
Breeding
Season Apr–Oct in whole range, also Nov in NC Venezuela; late May or early Jun to late Aug in El Salvador; sometimes two or three broods raised in a year. Monogamous; extra-pair copulations common. Solitary, but nests often close together and territories small (1). During display, male “jumps” from perch , flapping wings six times or more, exposing white in underwing, and vocalizes just before landing; may jump several times in a minute. Nest built by both sexes, a small, thin-walled cup of fibres and grasses, lined with finer rootlets and spider webs, placed within 1·2 m of ground in grass of low bush. Clutch 3 eggs, sometimes 2, bluish-white with brownish or purplish spots, these concentrated at larger end; no information on incubation period; chicks fed by both parents, nestling period c. 9 days.
Conservation Status
Not globally threatened (Least Concern). Generally common to abundant. Often very common, breeding in high densities, at optimum sites. Does well at edges of fields in agricultural areas.