Long-billed Thrasher

About the Long-billed Thrasher

The long-billed thrasher (Toxostoma longirostre) is a medium-sized resident songbird of South Texas and eastern Mexico. It bears a strong resemblance to its close relative the brown thrasher in appearance, calls, and various other behaviors; however, the two species do not overlap in range except in the winter when the brown thrasher will temporarily reside in the northern range of the long-billed.

The bird is a large sized mimid that is not especially wary, but it will take precautionary measures to prevent itself from being potential prey. Like other thrashers, it is named after its sweeping methods when searching for food, not for thrashing predators, although they are aggressive defenders of their territories.

The specific name longirostre is derived from the Latin words longus long and rostrum bill. There are two subspecies of the long-billed thrasher. T. longirostre ssp. longirostre was first described in scientific literature by Frédéric de Lafresnaye in 1838 as Orpheus longirostris, while T. longirostre ssp. sennitti was described by Robert Ridgway a half-century later.

T. longirostre ssp. longirostre (Lafresnaye, 1838). Range is in eastern Mexico, within the... Wikipedia →