Speckled Mourner

About the Speckled Mourner

The speckled mourner (Laniocera rufescens) is a species of bird in the family Tityridae. It is found in Mexico, in every Central American country except El Salvador, and in Colombia and Ecuador. The speckled mourner was originally described in 1858 as Lipaugus rufescens, placing it in the family Cotingidae. It was later reassigned to genus Laniocera that Lesson had erected in 1841. Well into the twentieth century authors variously placed that genus in Cotingidae, the manakin family Pipridae, or the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed the placement of Laniocera in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment. In 1998 the American Ornithological Society was unsure where to place the genus and listed its members as incertae sedis but in 2011 moved them to Tityridae.

The speckled mourner shares genus Laniocera with the cinereous mourner (L. hypopyrra) and the two form a superspecies. It has three subspecies, the nominate L. r. rufescens (Sclater, PL, 1858), L. r. tertia (Hartert, EJO, 1902), and L. r. griseigula (Meyer de Schauensee, 1950).

The speckled mourner is 19 to 21.5... Wikipedia →