Flame-crested Tanager

About the Flame-crested Tanager

The flame-crested tanager (Loriotus cristatus) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the flame-crested tanager in the supplement to his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne, which was the contemporary name for French Guiana. He used the French name Le tangara noir hupé de Cayenne and the Latin name Tangara cayanensis nigra cristata. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his Ornithologie. One of these was the flame-crested tanager. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Tanagra cristata, and cited Brisson's work.

The flame-crested tanager's further taxonomy is complicated. In 1869, August von Pelzeln assigned... Wikipedia →