Red-rumped Cacique

About the Red-rumped Cacique

The red-rumped cacique (Cacicus haemorrhous) is a species of bird in the family Icteridae, the oropendolas, New World orioles, and New World blackbirds. It is found in every mainland South American country except Chile. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the red-rumped cacique in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne in French Guiana. He used the French name Le cassique rouge and the Latin name Cassicus ruber. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized 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. One of these was the red-rumped cacique. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial Oriolus haemorrhous and cited Brisson's work. The specific epithet haemorrhous combines the Ancient Greek words haima "blood" and orrhos "rump". The red-rumped cacique is now the type species in the genus Cacicus that was introduced by the French naturalist... Wikipedia →