Yellow-breasted chat

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Icteriidae
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Yellow-breasted chat
Near the Siskiyou Mountains, Oregon

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Superfamily: Emberizoidea
Family: Icteriidae
Baird, 1858
Genus: Icteria
Vieillot, 1808
Species:
I. virens
Binomial name
Icteria virens
  Breeding
  Migration
  Nonbreeding
Synonyms

Turdus virens Linnaeus, 1758

The yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens) is a large songbird found in North America, and is the only member of the family Icteriidae. It was once a member of the New World warbler family

Parulidae, but in 2017, the American Ornithological Society
moved it to its own family. Its placement is not definitively resolved.

Taxonomy

The yellow-breasted chat was

type locality as "America".[2] The specific epithet is Latin meaning "green".[3] The locality has been restricted to South Carolina.[4] Linnaeus based his account on the "yellow brested chat" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.[5] It is now the only species placed in the genus Icteria that was introduced in 1808 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot.[6][7] It is also the only species placed in the family Icteriidae that was introduced (as Icterieae) in 1858 by the American naturalist Spencer Baird.[7][8][9]

The yellow-breasted chat was formerly considered the largest member of the family Parulidae, but following taxonomic studies, it was moved to the monotypic family Icteriidae in 2017.[10] Although Icteriidae is a distinct family from the New World blackbirds (Icteridae), which have a very similar name, taxonomic studies support them as being the closest living relatives of one another, and in a 2019 study[11] Carl Oliveros and colleagues actually classified the yellow-breasted chat as a member of Icteridae. In addition, the former grouping of the yellow-breasted chat as a warbler was not too far off because phylogenomic studies have placed Parulidae as sister to a clade that includes Icteridae. Those results make it reasonable to view Parulidae the sister group to the clade comprising Icteridae and Icteriidae, as in Oliveros et al.[11]

The

International Ornithological Committee (IOC).[7]

Parulidae
– New World warblers (120 species)

Icteriidae – yellow-breasted chat

Icteridae
– New World blackbirds (108 species)

Description

When considered part of the family Parulidae (New World warblers), the yellow-breasted chat was the largest species of parulid. In fact, it can often weigh more than twice as much as other parulid species, but the membership in this taxonomic family is disputed.

This species has a total length of 17 to 19.1 cm (6.7 to 7.5 in) and a wingspan of 23 to 27 cm (9.1 to 10.6 in). Body mass can range from 20.2 to 33.8 g (0.71 to 1.19 oz). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 7.1 to 8.4 cm (2.8 to 3.3 in), the elongated tail is 6.9 to 8.6 cm (2.7 to 3.4 in), the relatively long, heavy bill is 1.3 to 1.6 cm (0.51 to 0.63 in), and the tarsus is 2.5 to 3.1 cm (0.98 to 1.22 in).[12] These birds have olive upper parts with white bellies and bright-yellow throats and breasts. Other signature features of yellow-breasted chats are their large, white eye rings, and blackish legs. When seen, this species is unlikely to be mistaken for any other bird.

The song is an odd, variable mixture of cackles, clucks, whistles, and hoots. Their

grey catbirds and brown thrashers, which share similar habitat preferences and skulking habits, though are generally much more abundant. During the breeding season, chats are at their most conspicuous, as they usually sing from exposed locations and even fly in the open while gurgling their songs.[13]

Distribution and habitat

The yellow-breasted chat is found throughout North America. It breeds from the

coastal
areas farther north. This species occurs in areas where dense shrubbery is common. Today, its habitat often consists of abandoned farmland and other rural areas where overgrown vegetation proliferates.

Behaviour

Eating a small snail in a public plaza in New York City

The yellow-breasted chat is a shy, skulking species of bird, often being heard but not seen.

Breeding

The breeding habitat is dense, brushy vegetation or hedgerows. The nest is a bulky cup made of grasses, leaves, strips of bark, and stems of weeds, and lined with finer grasses, wiry plant stems, pine needles, and sometimes roots and hair. The nest is placed in thick shrub and often only about 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) above the ground. The clutch is three to five creamy-white eggs with reddish-brown blotches or speckles. These are incubated by the female and hatch in 11 to 12 days. Both parents tend the young, which fledge in 8 to 11 days. Chats are apparently vigilant guards of their nests, as parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds is not as frequent as with other cup-nest builders.[14] They are not as monogamous, though, as other warblers. In one study in central Kentucky, DNA fingerprinting revealed that 17% of 29 yellow-breasted chat nestlings were not sired by the male of the social pair and three of nine broods contained at least one extra-pair nestling.

Food and feeding

Yellow-breasted chats are omnivorous birds, and

mayflies, are typically preyed upon and are gleaned from dense vegetation.[14] Other invertebrates, including spiders
, are occasionally eaten, as well. Uniquely for a passerine of its size, the chat occasionally grips food with its feet before it eats.

Status

Yellow-breasted chats are declining in eastern North America due to

References

  1. ^ . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii. p. 171.
  3. .
  4. ^ Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1968). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 14. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 81.
  5. ^ Catesby, Mark (1729–1732). The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (in English and French). Vol. 1. London: W. Innys and R. Manby. p. 50, Plate 50.
  6. .
  7. ^ a b c Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (December 2023). "Caribbean "tanagers", Wrenthrush, Yellow-breasted Chat". IOC World Bird List Version 14.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  8. ^ Baird, Spencer F. (1858). Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practical and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean made under the direction of the secretary of war in 1853-1856. Vol. 9 Birds. Washington: Beverly Tucker, printer. p. 248.
  9. ^ Bock, Walter J. (1994). History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 222. New York: American Museum of Natural History. pp. 117, 155, 213, 224.
  10. .
  11. ^ .
  12. .
  13. ^ Yellow-breasted Chat, Life History, All About Birds – Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved on 2012-08-24.
  14. ^ a b Yellow-breasted Chat. Wbu.com. Retrieved on 2012-08-24.

Further reading

External links