The caciques are

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 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 ...

s in the New World blackbird family which are resident breeders in tropical

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

north to

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 ...

. All of the group are in currently placed in the genus ''Cacicus'', except the aberrant yellow-billed cacique (''Amblycercus holosericeus''), and the

Mexican cacique The Mexican cacique or yellow-winged cacique (''Cassiculus melanicterus'') is a species of cacique in the family Icteridae. It is found only on the west coast of Mexico and the northernmost edge of Guatemala. It is monotypic in its own genus. ...

(''Cassiculus melanicterus'') which constitute respective

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 ...

genera. Judging from mitochondrial DNA cytochrome ''b'' and

NADH dehydrogenase NADH dehydrogenase is an enzyme that converts nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) from its reduced form (NADH) to its oxidized form (NAD+). Members of the NADH dehydrogenase family and analogues are commonly systematically named using the for ...

subunit 2

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

(Price & Lanyon 2002), the aberrant

oropendola Oropendolas are a genus of passerine birds, ''Psarocolius'', in the New World blackbird family Icteridae. They were formerly split among two or three different genera and are found in Central and South America. All the oropendolas are large bir ...

s band-tailed oropendola (''Ocyalus latirostris'') and casqued oropendola, ''Psarocolius oseryi'' (''Ocyalus oseryi''?) seem to be closer to the caciques. Cacicus haemorrhous -nest colony -river-8b

Cacicus haemorrhous -nest colony -river-8b

The caciques are birds associated with woodland or forest. Most are colonial breeders, with several long, hanging, bag-shaped nests in a tree, each suspended from the end of a branch. Some species choose a tree that also contains an active

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

nest (such as '' Polybia rejecta'') as a deterrent to predators (e.g.

toucan Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five g ...

s), and females compete for the best sites near the protection of the wasp nest. The

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

are incubated by the female alone. These are slim birds with long tails and a predominantly black plumage. The relatively long pointed bill is pale greenish, yellowish or bluish, depending on species, and most caciques have blue eyes (at least when adult). The female is typically smaller than the male. Two species have the black plumage enlivened by a red rump, five have a yellow rump and in some cases yellow on the shoulders or crissum (the undertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are s ...

surrounding the cloaca). The two remaining species are all black with no bright colour patches. A single species, the

, has extensive yellow to the tail, but otherwise all caciques have largely black tails (something that separates them from the larger

s). Caciques eat large

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s and

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

. Most are gregarious and typically seen in small groups. They are very vocal, producing a wide range of songs, sometimes including mimicry. Most remain fairly common and are able to withstand some habitat modifications, but two west Amazonian species, the

Ecuadorian Ecuadorians ( es, ecuatorianos) are people identified with the South American country of Ecuador. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Ecuadorians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are colle ...

and Selva caciques, are notably local and scarce. The genus ''Cacicus'' was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

was subsequently designated as the

red-rumped cacique The red-rumped cacique (''Cacicus haemorrhous'') is a species of bird in the family Icteridae. It is a species of the Amazon Basin and the Guyanas in northern South America, and is only coastal there in the Guyanas and the Amazon River outlet to ...

Species of ''Cacicus''

References

* ffrench, Richard; O'Neill, John Patton & Eckelberry, Don R. (1991): ''A guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago'' (2nd edition). Comstock Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y.. *Hilty, Steven L. (2003): ''Birds of Venezuela''.

Christopher Helm Christopher Alexander Roger Helm (born Dundee, 1 February 1937 – 20 January 2007) was a Scottish book publisher, notably of ornithology related titles, including the '' Helm Identification Guides''. Born in Dundee, he was raised in Forfar ...

, London. *Jaramillo, Alvaro & Burke, Peter (1999): ''New World Blackbirds''.

, London. *Price, J. Jordan & Lanyon, Scott M. (2002): A robust phylogeny of the oropendolas: Polyphyly revealed by mitochondrial sequence data. '' Auk'' 119(2): 335–348. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2002)119 335:ARPOTO.0.CO;2PDF fulltext
*Stiles, F. Gary & Skutch, Alexander Frank (1989): ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica''. Comistock, Ithaca.

External links

Cacique videos, photos and sounds
��Internet Bird Collection {{Taxonbar, from=Q1821411 Icteridae

Species of ''Cacicus''

See also

References

External links