Galápagos mockingbird
| Galápagos mockingbird | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| On Santa Fe | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Mimidae |
| Genus: | Mimus |
| Species: | M. parvulus |
| Binomial name | |
|
Mimus parvulus (Gould, 1837) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Nesomimus parvulus |
|
Nesomimus parvulus
The Galápagos mockingbird (Mimus parvulus) is a species of bird in the family Mimidae. It is endemic to the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.
The Galápagos mockingbird is one of four mockingbird species endemic to the Galápagos Islands. These four are all closely related, and DNA evidence shows they likely all descended from an ancestor species which reached the islands in a single colonization event. When John Gould first described the species in 1837, based on specimens brought back from the islands by Charles Darwin, he named it Orpheus parvulus. However, because of the rules of binomial nomenclature, Orpheus was declared a junior synonym, and in 1841, George Robert Gray moved all of the Orpheus mockingbirds to the older genus Mimus. In 1890, Robert Ridgway created the genus Nesomimus for the mockingbirds found on the Galápagos Islands, and most taxonomists adopted the change. Recent DNA studies, however, show that the Nesomimus mockingbirds fall within the traditional Mimus genus, making the latter , so some taxonomists have moved them back into Mimus.
There are six subspecies, each endemic to a particular island or islands:
The genus name Mimus is a Latin word meaning "mimic", while the species name parvulus is a Latin word meaning "very small".
Like all of the mockingbirds found in the Galápagos, this species is long-tailed and relatively long-legged, with a long, slim, decurved beak.
The Galápagos mockingbird is the most widespread of the mockingbird species found in the Galápagos; it is found on most of the major (and many of the minor) islands of the archipelago.
Like the other mockingbirds found on the islands, the Galápagos mockingbird is an omnivore; it eats everything from seeds and invertebrates to eggs, baby turtles and Galápagos sea lion placentas. Research suggests that the species may be an effective distributor of invasive plant species across the islands; it eats more fruit than did several tested species of Darwin's finches, but seeds that pass through its digestive tract generally remain viable.
...
Wikipedia