Caribbean Elaenia

About the Caribbean Elaenia

The Caribbean elaenia (Elaenia martinica) is a species of bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in the West Indies, in parts of Central America, and on islands just off the northern South American coast.

In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Caribbean elaenia in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Martinique. He used the French name Le gobe-mouche hupé de la Martinique and the Latin Muscicapa Martinicana cristata. 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 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 including the Caribbean elaenia. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Muscicapa martinica and cited Brisson's work. This species is now placed in the genus Elaenia that was introduced by the Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1836.

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