Hispaniolan Oriole

About the Hispaniolan Oriole

The Hispaniolan oriole (Icterus dominicensis) is a species of bird in the family Icteridae. It is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti). In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Hispaniolan oriole in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. He used the French name Le carouge de S. Domingue and the Latin name Xanthornus Dominicensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition in 1766, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson, with one of them being the Hispaniolan oriole. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Oriolus dominicensis and cited Brisson's work. This species is now placed in the genus Icterus that was also introduced by Brisson.

The Hispaniolan oriole was once identified as a distinct species. However, in 1936, American... Wikipedia →