Mangrove Vireo

About the Mangrove Vireo

The mangrove vireo (Vireo pallens) is a species of bird in the family Vireonidae, the vireos, greenlets, and shrike-babblers. It is found in Mexico and every Central American country except Panama. The mangrove vireo was formally described in 1863 by the English naturalist Osbert Salvin based on specimens collected at El Realejo in Nicaragua and at Puntarenas in Costa Rica. He coined the current binomial Vireo pallens. The specific epithet is from Latin meaning "pale-colored", "greenish" or "yellowish". El Realejo has been designated the type locality.

The mangrove vireo's taxonomy is unsettled. The IOC, AviList, and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World assign it these 10 subspecies: The Clements taxonomy does not recognize V. p. wetmorei and V. p. browningi, including them within V. p. semiflavus.

Some twentieth century authors treated the mangrove vireo as conspecific with the white-eyed vireo (V. griseus). Others have suggested that two or three species are represented within the mangrove vireo because of plumage and vocal differences between the "Pacific" and "Caribbean" groups of subspecies.

Subspecies V. p. approximans was... Wikipedia →