Mountain Cacique

About the Mountain Cacique

The mountain cacique (Cacicus chrysonotus) is a species of bird in the family Icteridae, the oropendolas, New World orioles, and New World blackbirds. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The mountain cacique has a complicated taxonomic history. It was formally described in 1838 with the binomial Cacicus Chrysonotus [sic]. In the first half of the twentieth century many authors placed it in genus Archiplanus which was later merged into Cacicus.

As of late 2025 taxonomic systems assign the mountain cacique these three subspecies: C. c. leucoramphus (Bonaparte, 1845) C. c. peruvianus Zimmer, JT, 1924 C. c. chrysonotus d'Orbigny & Lafresnaye, 1838 However, in the second half of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first many authors treated chrysonotus as a species, the "southern mountain cacique" and the other two as the "northern mountain cacique". The IOC and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World kept them separate until 2023. The Clements taxonomy recognizes some distinction within the species, calling C. c. chrysonotus the "mountain cacique (Bolivian)" and grouping the other two subspecies... Wikipedia →