Black-collared Jay

About the Black-collared Jay

The black-collared jay (Cyanolyca armillata) is a species of bird in the family Corvidae, the crows and jays. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The black-collared jay was originally described in 1845 as Cyanocorax armillatus. It and several other species were later moved to their current genus Cyanolyca. The black-collared jay and the turquoise jay (Cyanolyca turcosa) were for a time treated as subspecies of the white-collared jay (C. viridicyanus) but they were separated beginning in the 1950s.

The black-collared jay's further taxonomy is unsettled. The IOC, AviList, and the Clements taxonomy assign it these three subspecies: Cyanolyca armillata armillata (Gray, 1845) Cyanolyca armillata meridana Sclater & Salvin, 1876

Cyanolyca armillata quindiuna Sclater & Salvin, 1876 However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) treats quindiuna as a separate species, the Quindio jay, and retains the English name "black-collared jay" for the other two subspecies. Clements does recognize the taxon within the species as the "black-collared jay (Quindio)". At least one nineteenth centur author called the taxon Xanthura quindiuna... Wikipedia →