Jamaican Becard

About the Jamaican Becard

The Jamaican becard (Pachyramphus niger) is a species of bird in the family Tityridae, the tityras, becards, and allies. It is endemic to Jamaica. The Jamaican becard was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the shrikes in the genus Lanius and coined the binomial name Lanius niger. Gmelin based his description on the "black shrike" that had been described in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had received two specimens from Jamaica.

The Jamaican becard and some other becards were for a time placed in genus Platypsaris which was merged into Pachyramphus in 1973. It is now one of 18 becards in genus Pachyramphus that had been introduced in 1839 by George Gray. The genus Pachyramphus has variously been assigned to the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae and the cotinga family Cotingidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed the placement of Pachyramphus in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment. In 1998 the American Ornithological Society... Wikipedia →