White-crested Elaenia

About the White-crested Elaenia

The white-crested elaenia (Elaenia albiceps) is a species of bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The white-crested elaenia was formally described in 1837 as Muscipeta albiceps by the French naturalists Alcide d'Orbigny and Frédéric de Lafresnaye. They noted that the species occurred in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Yungas region in Bolivia and the Tacna region of Peru. In 1925 the Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr restricted the type locality to the Yungas region in Bolivia based on the provenance of the type species. The specific epithet albiceps combines the Latin albus meaning "white" with -ceps meaning "-headed". The white-crested elaenia is now placed in the genus Elaenia that was introduced in 1836 by the Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall.

Six subspecies are recognised: E. a. griseigularis Sclater, PL, 1859 – Andes of southwestern Colombia (Nariño) to Ecuador and northwestern Peru E. a. diversa Zimmer, JT, 1941 – central Andes of Peru (Cajamarca to Huánuco)

E. a. urubambae Zimmer, JT, 1941 – subtropical southeastern Peru (Cusco) E. a. albiceps (d'Orbigny... Wikipedia →