The orangequit (''Euneornis campestris'') is a species of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird in the tanager family

Thraupidae The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12% of the Neotropica ...

and is the only member of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Euneornis''. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

where its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are subtropical or

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

moist lowland

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and heavily degraded former forest.

Breeding

The Orangequit's breeding season is between the months of April and June. The species will build nests out of grass and plant fiber and place them in trees almost six meters above the ground. The female will typically lay 2-4 eggs at a time and will incubate. The appearances differs according to their sex and age.

Taxonomy

The orangequit was formally described by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...

in 1758 in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Motacilla campestris''. Linnaeus based his description on the "American Hedge-Sparrow" that George Edwards had described and illustrated in his 1750 work, ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds'', from a specimen collected in Jamaica. The species was moved to the genus ''Euneornis'' by the Austrian zoologist Leopold Fitzinger in 1856. The genus name ''Euneornis'' combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''eu'' meaning "good" with the genus ''Neornis'' introduced by Edward Blyth in 1845 and now a junior synonym of ''

Cettia ''Cettia'' is a genus of small insectivorous songbirds (" warblers") which make up the core of the newly recognized family Cettiidae. They were formerly placed in the Sylviidae, which at that time was a wastebin taxon for the warbler-like Sylv ...

''. The specific epithet ''campestris'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and means "of the fields". The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

: no subspecies are recognised.

Gallery

Orangequit male RWD4, crop.jpg, Male at

Negril Negril is a small (pop. 6,900) but widely dispersed seaside resort, beach resort and town located in Westmoreland Parish, Westmoreland and Hanover Parish, Hanover Parishes of Jamaica, parishes at the far western tip of Jamaica, southwest from ...

Orangequit at Geejam in Jamaica (4212232108).jpg, Male at Geejam Orangequit female RWD2.jpg, Female at Negril Orangequit (Euneornis campestris) (8082119181).jpg, Female at Marshall's Pen

References

* Raffaele, Herbert; James Wiley, Orlando Garrido, Allan Keith & Janis Raffaele (2003) ''Birds of the West Indies'', Christopher Helm, London. Thraupidae Endemic birds of Jamaica Higher-level bird taxa restricted to the West Indies Birds described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Thraupidae-stub