The palm crow (''Corvus palmarum'') is a relatively small

corvid Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Currently, ...

that occurs on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola ( Haiti and the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

) and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

, where it was formerly very frequent, but is now reduced in population.

Taxonomy

The Cuban subspecies is slightly smaller, and is usually separated as a subspecies (''Corvus palmarum minutus''); the Hispaniolan subspecies' trinomial is ''Corvus palmarum palmarum'' (the nominate subspecies). Both subspecies are usually now given the respective common names of Hispaniolan palm crow and Cuban palm crow to distinguish them. Despite being sympatric with the

white-necked crow The white-necked crow (''Corvus leucognaphalus'') is the largest of the four Caribbean corvids. It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic); it was formerly also extant on Puerto Rico, but has been ...

(''Corvus leucognaphalus'') on Hispaniola, it appears to be more closely related to the fish crow (''C. ossifragus'') of the East Coast of the United States, as well as two smaller species, the

Tamaulipas crow The Tamaulipas crow (''Corvus imparatus'') is a crow found in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas. Description It is a relatively small and sleek looking crow, in length. It has very glossy dark, bluish plumage, which appears soft and silky ...

(''C. imparatus'') and Sinaloan crow (''C. sinaloae'') of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, than the white-necked crow, which is more related to the

Cuban crow The Cuban crow (''Corvus nasicus'') is one of four species of crow that occur on islands in the Caribbean. It is closely related to the white-necked crow (''C. leucognaphalus'') and Jamaican crow (''C. jamaicensis''), with which it shares simil ...

(''Corvus nasicus'') and the Jamaican crow (''Corvus jamaicensis''), the other two Caribbean corvids.

Habitat

The local name for the palm crow is cao in the Dominican Republic (where it is locally common, mainly in mountain pine forests and also around the area of

Lake Enriquillo Lake Enriquillo ( es, Lago Enriquillo) is a hypersaline lake in the Dominican Republic located in the southwestern region of the country. Its waters are shared between the provinces of Bahoruco and Independencia, the latter of which borders Hait ...

), which is onomatopoeic of the simple and repetitive call of this bird.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1586680 Birds described in 1835 Taxa named by Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg Birds of the Dominican Republic Birds of Haiti Birds of Cuba Birds of Hispaniola Corvus Endemic birds of the Caribbean