Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Passeriformes > Icteridae > Quiscalus > Quiscalus mexicanus

Quiscalus mexicanus (Great-tailed Grackle)

Synonyms: Cassidix mexicanus; Corvus mexicanus (homotypic)
Language: Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The great-tailed grackle or Mexican grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) is a medium-sized, gregarious passerine bird native to North and South America. A member of the family Icteridae, it is one of ten extant species of grackle and is closely related to the boat-tailed grackle and the slender-billed grackle. It is sometimes erroneously referred to as a "blackbird" in the southern United States, although blackbirds belong to the genus Euphagus. Similarly, it is often called "cuervo" in areas of Mexico owing to its glossy black plumage, although it is not a member of the genus Corvus, nor even of the family Corvidae.
View Wikipedia Record: Quiscalus mexicanus

Infraspecies

Quiscalus mexicanus graysoni
Quiscalus mexicanus loweryi
Quiscalus mexicanus mexicanus
Quiscalus mexicanus monsoni
Quiscalus mexicanus nelsoni
Quiscalus mexicanus obscurus
Quiscalus mexicanus peruvianus
Quiscalus mexicanus prosopidicola

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
0
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
6
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 2.23557
EDGE Score: 1.17421
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Clutch Size [7]  4
Clutches / Year [4]  2
Fledging [2]  22 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [3]  15,000,000
Incubation [4]  13 days
Mating System [8]  Polygyny
Maximum Longevity [4]  13 years
Water Biome [1]  Coastal
Adult Weight [2]  169 grams
Birth Weight [4]  6 grams
Female Weight [6]  116 grams
Male Weight [6]  222 grams
Weight Dimorphism [6]  91.4 %
Breeding Habitat [3]  Generalist, Agricultural
Wintering Geography [3]  Non-migrartory
Wintering Habitat [3]  Generalist, Agricultural
Diet [5]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore
Diet - Invertibrates [5]  80 %
Diet - Seeds [5]  20 %
Forages - Mid-High [5]  10 %
Forages - Understory [5]  10 %
Forages - Ground [5]  80 %
Female Maturity [4]  1 year
Male Maturity [4]  2 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No
Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru No

Prey / Diet

Ficus cotinifolia[9]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Falco femoralis (Aplomado Falcon)[10]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Centrorhynchus microcephalus[11]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 3Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 4de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 5Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 6Johnson, K. , and BD Peer. 2001. Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus). In The Birds of North America, no. 576 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). Birds of North America, Philadelphia
♦ 7Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 8Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 9"Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivores: a global review", MIKE SHANAHAN, SAMSON SO, STEPHEN G. COMPTON and RICHARD CORLETT, Biol. Rev. (2001), 76, pp. 529–572
♦ 10THE DIET OF THE APLOMADO FALCON (FALCO FEMORALIS) IN EASTERN MEXICO, DEAN P. HECTOR, The Condor 87:336-342
♦ 11Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0