Tooth-billed tanager explained

The tooth-billed tanager (Piranga lutea) is a medium-sized American songbird in the family Cardinalidae.

Taxonomy

There six subspecies of Piranga lutea:

• Piranga lutea testacea (highlands of northern Costa Rica and eastern Panama)
• Piranga lutea faceta (Santa Marta Mountains in northern Colombia, mountains of northern Venezuela and Trinidad)
• Piranga lutea haemalea (Amazonas and Bolívar in southern Venezuela, the Guianas, Serra Imeri in northern Brazil)
• Piranga lutea toddi (mountains of central Colombia)
• Piranga hepatica desidiosa (southwestern Colombia)
• Piranga lutea lutea (southwestern Colombia and northwestern Bolivia)

The tooth-billed tanager is sometimes treated as part of a more broadly circumscribed hepatic tanager species, where it makes up the lutea subspecies group (highland hepatic tanager).^[1] However, the IOC World Bird List splits these birds into three species, also recognising Piranga hepatica (the hepatic tanager) and Piranga flava (the red tanager).

Notes and References

1. Web site: The Family Cardinalidae . Howard & Moore checklist . 4.1 . The Trust for Avian Systematics . 28 April 2024 .