The rose-bellied bunting or Rosita's bunting (''Passerina rositae'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family

Cardinalidae Cardinalidae (often referred to as the "cardinal-grosbeaks" or simply the "cardinals") is a family of New World-endemic passerine birds that consists of cardinals, grosbeaks, and buntings. It also includes several birds such as the tanager-lik ...

, the cardinals or cardinal grosbeaks. 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 ...

to a very small area of southern

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 ...

.Brewer, D. (2020). Rose-bellied Bunting (''Passerina rositae''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.robbun1.01 retrieved May 17, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The rose-bellied bunting 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 ...

Description

The rose-bellied bunting is long and weighs . The adult male's crown is purplish-blue, and it is electric blue on the rest of its upperparts that fades from darker to lighter towards the tail. Its chin is grayish, the throat and chest blue, and the belly and vent area salmon pink. The adult female's head and upperparts are gray-brown with a bluish tinge at the rump. Its undersides are pinkish buff, warmer on the throat becoming paler towards the lower belly.

Distribution and habitat

The rose-bellied bunting's core range is a narrow strip along the Pacific slope of the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the T ...

in eastern

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...

and western Chiapas. There is one additional record further east in Chiapas, in El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. It inhabits arid to semiarid

thorn forest A thorn forest is a dense scrubland with vegetation characteristic of dry subtropical and warm temperate areas with a seasonal rainfall averaging . Regions Africa Is present in the southwest of Africa with smaller areas in other places of Africa. ...

, moister

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

, and

swamp forest Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes. Freshwater swamp forests are found ...

. In elevation it ranges from .

Behavior

Feeding

The rose-bellied bunting forages alone or in pairs in the lower to mid-level of its habitat. Its diet consists of seeding grasses and fruit from trees and bushes.

Breeding

Two rose-bellied bunting nests have been described. One found in late July had freshly laid eggs, the other had eggs well along in incubation in late June. The nests were open cups of dead leaves and bark lined with finer material; they were placed in crotches of small saplings. One clutch had three eggs and the other four. No other information about the species' breeding phenology has been published.

Vocalization

The rose-bellied bunting's song is "a sweet, slightly burry warble

Its call is "a wet 'plik' or 'plek'

Status

The IUCN has assessed the rose-bellied bunting as Near Threatened "because it has a small range, which may be in decline owing to habitat degradation and infrastructure development."

References

External links

* Encyclopedia of Life
Rose Bellied BuntingEncyclopedia of Life
{{Taxonbar, from=Q934861 rose-bellied bunting Endemic birds of Southern Mexico Near threatened fauna of North America rose-bellied bunting Taxonomy articles created by Polbot