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Scarlet-rumped cacique

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(Redirected from Cacicus microrhynchus)

Scarlet-rumped cacique
in Panama
song
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Icteridae
Genus: Cacicus
Species:
C. uropygialis
Binomial name
Cacicus uropygialis
(Sclater & Salvin, 1865)

The scarlet-rumped cacique (Cacicus microrhynchus) is a passerine bird species in the New World family Icteridae.

Distribution

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Description

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The scarlet-rumped cacique is sexually dimorphic like many Icteridae, though it mainly concerns size in this species. Males are 23 cm (9 in) long and weigh 68 g (2.4 oz), while the female is 20 cm (8 in) long and weighs 53 g (1.9 oz); This cacique is a slim long-winged bird, with a relatively short tail, blue eyes, and a pale yellow pointed bill. It has mainly black plumage, apart from a scarlet patch on the lower back and upper rump. The female is smaller and a duller black than the male, and the juvenile bird has a brownish tone to the plumage and a brownish-orange rump.

The song of these birds is a pleasant wheee-whee-whee-whee-wheet, but the Pacific cacique has a descending melancholy wheeo-wheeo-wheeo-wheeo, while C. m. microrynchus in the narrowest sense has a burry pleeo; C. m. pacificus has a sweeter keeo or a shree.[2]


Ecology and distribution

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in Costa Rica

Unlike some other caciques they are not usually colonial breeders; like them they have a bag-shaped nest. It is built about 3.5–30 m (11–98 ft) above ground, in a tree which usually also contains an active wasp nest. The bird's nest is 36–64 cm (14–25 in) long, widens at the base, and is suspended from the end of a branch. The normal clutch is two dark-blotched white eggs. The male will assist in feeding the young, but does not incubate.

Footnotes

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  1. ^ BirdLife International (2020). "Cacicus uropygialis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020: e.T22733589A138356612. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T22733589A138356612.en.
  2. ^ Jaramillo & Burke (1999)

References

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