Black-whiskered Vireo

About the Black-whiskered Vireo

The black-whiskered vireo (Vireo altiloquus) is a small passerine bird in the family Vireonidae, the vireos, greenlets, and shrike-babblers. It is found in Florida, the Bahamas, many Caribbean islands, and northern and Amazonian South America.

The black-whiskered vireo was originally described in 1808 as Muscicapa altiloqua, mistakenly placing it in the Old World flycatcher family. It was at various times also called Vireosylva altiloqua and Vireo calidris. The black-whiskered vireo has these six subspecies:

V. a. barbatulus (Cabanis, 1855) V. a. altiloquus (Vieillot, 1808) V. a. barbadensis (Ridgway, 1874) V. a. bonairensis Phelps, WH & Phelps, WH Jr, 1948 V. a. grandior (Ridgway, 1884) V. a. canescens (Cory, 1887) The black-whiskered vireo is 15 to 16.5 cm (5.9 to 6.5 in) long. The nominate subspecies V. a. altiloquus weighs an average of 18 g (0.63 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a bluish gray forehead and crown with a buff-olive tinge, a buffy whitish supercilium from the bill past the eye, a wide dusky stripe through the eye, and the eponymous black "whisker" on the sides of the throat... Wikipedia →