Worm-eating Warbler

About the Worm-eating Warbler

The worm-eating warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum) is a small New World warbler that breeds in the Eastern United States and migrates to southern Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America for the winter. It is the only species in the genus Helmitheros.

The worm-eating warbler was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla and coined the binomial name Motacilla vermivora. Gmelin based his account on the "worm-eater" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the English naturalist George Edwards in his Gleanings of Natural History. Edwards had received a specimen from the American naturalist William Bartram that had been collected in Pennsylvania. The worm-eating warbler is now placed in the genus Helmitheros that was introduced in 1819 by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek helmins meaning "worm", and -thēras meaning "hunter". The specific epithet vermivorum is from Latin vermis meaning "worm" and -vorus meaning "-eating". The species is monotypic:... Wikipedia →