The unicolored jay (''Aphelocoma unicolor'')

Etymology Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words ...

: ''Aphelocoma'', from

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 ...

ized

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 ...

''apheles-'' (from ἀφελής-) "simple" + Latin ''coma'' (from Greek ''kome'' κόμη) "hair", in reference to the lack of striped or banded feathers in this genus, compared to other jays. ''unicolor'',

for "unicolored". is an ''Aphelocoma'' jay native to

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud ...

s of northwestern

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and southern and southeastern

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 Guate ...

, from central Honduras west to central

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in Municipalities of Guerrero, 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acap ...

, southern

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

and extreme southern San Luis Potosí. It is apparently a

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

member of its

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 n ...

(Rice ''et al.'' 2003). At Montebello, Chiapas, it is a cooperative breeder (Webber and Brown 1994).

References

*Rice, Nathan H.; Martínez-Meyer, Enrique & Peterson, A. Townsend (2003): Ecological niche differentiation in the ''Aphelocoma'' jays: a phylogenetic perspective. '' Biol. J. Linn. Soc.'' 80(3): 369–383. PDF fulltext
*Webber, T., and Jerram L. Brown. 1994. Natural History of the Unicolored Jay in Chiapas, Mexico. Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology 5(2):135-160. *Webber, T., and Nancy G. Stotz. 2019. Vocalizations of Unicolored Jays (''Aphelocoma unicolo''r) at Montebello, Chiapas, Mexico. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History 57 (1): 1-75.

Footnotes

External links

* CONABIO
Unicolored jay drawing
Retrieved 2007-FEB-26.
RangeMaps & synopsis
nfoNatura NatureServe
Picture
VIREO Aphelocoma Birds of Mexico Birds of El Salvador Birds of Guatemala Birds of Honduras Birds described in 1847 Taxa named by Bernard du Bus de Gisignies Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur {{Corvidae-stub