The silvery-throated jay (''Cyanolyca argentigula'') 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 lightweigh ...

in the family

Corvidae 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, 13 ...

. It is found in the

Talamancan montane forests The Talamancan montane forests ecoregion, in the tropical moist broadleaf forest biome, are in montane Costa Rica and western Panama in Central America. Setting The Talamancan montane forests cover a discontinuous area of in Cordilleran mounta ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

and western

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 ...

. The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

Description

The silvery-throated jay is a distinctive small

jay A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian m ...

, unlikely to be confused with any other bird found within its range. The sexes are similar, with the adult being about in length including the long tail. The head is black with a narrow but obvious white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

, and it bears an inconspicuous crest of short stiff feathers on the forehead. The throat and breast are silvery-white, sometimes with a violet sheen. The mantle, neck and sides of breast are black which gradually blends into the dark purplish-blue of the rest of the plumage. The upper surfaces of the wings and tail are a brighter, paler shade of blue and the undersides are blackish. The irises are deep red and the bill and legs are black. The plumage of the juvenile is duller and lacks the white on the head.

Ecology

A sociable bird, it moves through the upper parts of the forest canopy in groups of four to ten. Outside the breeding season, larger groups of up to thirty may form, and they tend to

roost Roost may refer to: Animal resting * Roosting, resting behavior of birds * Communal roosting, a behavior of some birds and other animals * Monarch butterfly roosts, communal resting sites in monarch butterfly migration * Bat roost, a list of pla ...

communally, settling down for the night with much chatter. When foraging, they move methodically through the crowns of trees, searching in crevices and probing into

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

es,

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.epiphyte An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

s. They feed on

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 pairs ...

s and other

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

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 ...

and

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, raspb ...

. The breeding season is in the period March to June, but little is known about the nest and eggs of this bird.

Status

''Cyanocorax argentigula'' is native to Costa Rica and Panama where it lives in moist cloud forest at altitudes between . It is a relatively uncommon species, and at around its total area of occupancy is small, but the population seems stable and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1587566

silvery-throated jay The silvery-throated jay (''Cyanolyca argentigula'') is a species of bird in the family Corvidae. It is found in the Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN has ra ...

Birds of the Talamancan montane forests

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot