The pied water tyrant (''Fluvicola pica'') is a small passerine bird in the

tyrant A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to rep ...

flycatcher family. It breeds in tropical South America from

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

and

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

south to

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Taxonomy

The pied water tyrant was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his '' Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux'' from a specimen collected in

Cayenne Cayenne (; ; gcr, Kayenn) is the capital city of French Guiana, an overseas region and Overseas department, department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic Oc ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and natural history, naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D ...

coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Muscicapa pica'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The pied water tyrant is now placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Fluvicola ''Fluvicola'' is a genus of birds in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. The genus was introduced by the English naturalist William John Swainson in 1827. He designated the type species as the masked water tyrant (''Fluvicola nengeta'') in ...

'' that was introduced by the English naturalist

William John Swainson William John Swainson FLS, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of ...

in 1827. The species in

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 "unispec ...

. The genus name is derived from a combination of Latin ''fluvius'' meaning "river and ''-cola'' meaning "dweller". The specific epithet ''pica'' is Latin for "magpie".

Description

The pied water tyrant is 13.5 cm long and weighs 13g. Adults are mainly white with a black nape, back, wings and tail. Sexes are similar, although the female may have some brown mixed with the black, and immature birds are brown where the adult is black. The call is a nasal ''djweeooo''.

Distribution and habitat

This species is found in marshy savannahs and the edges of mangrove

swamps A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

. The nest is a feather-lined oval ball of grasses and other plant material, with a side entrance. It is placed at the end of a branch near or over water. Both sexes incubate the typical clutch of two or three creamy-white eggs, which are marked with a few brown spots. Cowbirds sometimes parasitise the nest. Pied water tyrants often bob up and down when perched, and have a fluttering "butterfly" display flight. They forage for insects, their staple diet, in low waterside vegetation.

References

* *

External links

"Pied water tyrant" videos
on the Internet Bird Collection

VIREO * ttp://www.geometer.org/TT2004/TT/images/WaterTyrant.jpg Photo-High Res ttp://www.geometer.org/TT2004/index.html Articlegeometer.org–"Trinidad and Tobago"
Photo-High Res(no. 1 of 3)
oiseaux {{Taxonbar, from=Q901879 pied water tyrant Birds of Panama Birds of Colombia Birds of Venezuela Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Birds of the Guianas pied water tyrant