Mouse-Coloured Tyrannulet

About the Mouse-Coloured Tyrannulet

The mouse-colored tyrannulet (Nesotriccus murinus) is a species of bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of the tyrant flycatchers family Tyrannidae. It is found from Costa Rica and Panama south to Brazil and northern Argentina. The mouse-colored tyrannulet has sometimes been split into two species, the northern mouse-colored tyrannulet and the southern mouse-colored tyrannulet.

The mouse-colored tyrannulet was formally described in 1825 by the German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix under the binomial name Platyrhynchus murinus based on a specimen from Brazil. The specific epithet is Modern Latin meaning "mouse-grey" from Latin murinus meaning "of mice". The type locality has been restricted to Juazeiro in the state of Bahia in eastern Brazil. The mouse-colored tyrannulet is now one of four species placed in the genus Nesotriccus that was introduced by Charles Haskins Townsend in 1895.

Four subspecies are recognised: N. m. eremonomus (Wetmore, 1953) – Pacific lowlands of south Costa Rica and Panama N. m. incomtus (Cabanis & Heine, 1860) – Colombia, northeast Ecuador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Guyana N. m. murinus (Spix, 1825) – central, east, south Brazil; central... Wikipedia →