Legatus leucophaius . Bird distributed in South America and the Caribbean. It is the only species of the genus Legatus. It is easily recognized because the adults show a yellow spot on their sooty brown crown; They also have white eyebrows surrounding the crown, sprinkled on the side of the forehead with fusco and with a brown tint on the nape of the neck.
Summary
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- 1Naturaleza
- 2Origen
- 1 Biological description
- 2Subespecies
- 3 Other names
- 3Referencia
- 4 Sources
Nature
Origin of distribution between South America and part of the Caribbean. Among the countries of Mexico, Guatemala , Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru , Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina
It inhabits the edges of humid forests and tall trees in adjacent clearings, mainly below 1,200 meters above sea level. Most of the populations are sedentary, at least those of Central America and Trinidad are migratory as they move to South America and Tobago.
Origen
The species L. leucophaius was discovered by the French naturalist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1818 under the scientific name Platyrhynchos leucophaius; Cayenne type locality. The genus Leucophaius was described by the British ornithologist Philip Lutley Sclater in 1859.
biological description
Adults are about 15 cm long and weigh about 23 g. Its upperparts are plain brown, although the flight feathers have a narrow white edge. On the head it has a long whitish superciliary bar, a hidden yellow plyal bar, and a dark band across its eyes .
Its throat is white, and it also has a white malar stripe. Its underparts are whitish with yellowish tones, with diffuse marbling of brown on the chest and sides. Its beak is short, wide and dark in color.
Note the long whitish superciliary list, a hidden yellow plyal list, and a dark band across its eyes.
They feed mainly on fruits, although they feed their young with insects. They are usually found perched on high tree branches. Its name is due to the fact that it does not build its own nests but instead appropriates the closed nests built by other birds, often much larger than itself.
Once they have managed to drive away the legitimate owners of the nest, they take out their eggs and the female lays her own, usually two although she can lay up to four, brown with black spots. She incubates them alone for 16 days until they hatch, and the chicks take 18-20 days to develop.
Its call is an ascending “wiii”, which it emits from a high branch during most of the day, or sometimes a monotonous wip wip wip. Of uncertain affinity with Myiozetetes, based on the morphology of the syrinx and the fully encapsulated globular nest. Molecular data offer limited support that it is basal to a clade including Phelpsia and Philohydor, while further analysis indicates some affinity with Pitangus and Myiozetetes; relationship with Myiozetetes also suggested by nest-pirating practices, although observations suggest that such behavior and/or nest-taking may either have evolved independently or be an ancestral character in the subfamily.
The extensive genetic-molecular studies carried out by Tello et al. (2009) discovered a number of novel relationships within the family Tyrannidae that are not yet reflected in most classifications.
Following these studies, Ohlson et al. (2013) proposed dividing Tyrannidae into 5 families. According to the proposed arrangement, Legatus remains in the Tyrannidae, in a subfamily Tyranninae VIGORS, 1825, together with Attila, Ramphotrigon, Deltarhynchus and the tribes Myiarchini HELLMAYR, 1927 and Tyrannini VIGORS, 1825.
The subspecies variegatus is indistinguishable from the nominate only by coloration; even though the boundaries are not well defined, the two subspecies come together in Honduras . Birds from southern Brazil , Paraguay, and Argentina were described as subspecies albicollis, but it is merely slightly larger on average.
subspecies
According to the classification of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) (Version 5.3, 2015) and Clements Checklist v.2015, 2 subspecies are recognized, with their corresponding geographic distribution:
- Legatus leucophaius variegatus (SCLATER, 1857) – eastern Mexico (southern San Luis Potosíeast to Tabasco , northern and central Campeche and Quintana Roo to northern Oaxaca and northern Chiapas ) to northern and central Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
- Legatus leucophaius leucophaius (VIEILLOT, 1818) – Nicaraguasouth to Panama and Colombia , east through Venezuela, the Guianas and Trinidad and Tobago, and south through Ecuador, Peru, northwest and central Brazil (south to the northern Río Grande do Sul) and northern and eastern Bolivia to central and eastern Paraguay and northern Argentina (Salta, Jujuy and Tucumán; eastern Formosa, eastern Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones).
Other names
It is called pirate flycatcher (in Costa Rica and Peru), pirate flycatcher (in Colombia), pirate chili (in Honduras), striped chiffchaff (in Nicaragua), pirate flycatcher (in Mexico), thief flycatcher (in Venezuela), small tuquito (in Argentina and Paraguay) or bem-te-vi-pirata (in Portuguese, in Brazil).
