Cocoa Thrush

About the Cocoa Thrush

The cocoa thrush (Turdus fumigatus) is a species of bird in the family Turdidae. It is found on St. Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad and in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. The cocoa thrush was originally described in 1823 with the binomial Turdus fumigatus and has kept that binomial ever since.

However, its taxonomy since its description is complicated and as of early 2026 remains unsettled. During the twentieth century different authors included one or both of what are now Hauxwell's thrush (T. hauxwelli) and the pale-vented thrush (T. obsoletus) as subspecies. They each attained full species status by the end of the century.

The IOC, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World, and AviList assign it these five subspecies: T. f. aquilonalis (Cherrie, 1909) T. f. orinocensis Zimmer, JT & Phelps, WH, 1955 T. f. fumigatus Lichtenstein, MHC, 1823

T. f. bondi Deignan, 1951 T. f. personus (Barbour, 1911) However, the Clements taxonomy does not recognize T. f. bondi but includes it within T. f. personus. Some authors have suggested that bondi and personus represent one or two separate species. Clements... Wikipedia →