Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Passeriformes > Polioptilidae > Polioptila > Polioptila caerulea

Polioptila caerulea (Blue-grey Gnatcatcher; Blue-gray Gnatcatcher)

Synonyms: Motacilla caerulea
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The blue-gray gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) is a very small songbird, 10–13 cm (3.9–5.1 in) in length and weighing only 5–7 g (0.18–0.25 oz). Adult males are blue-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, have a slender dark bill, and a long black tail edged in white. Females are less blue. Both sexes have a white eye ring. These birds migrate to the southern United States, Mexico, northern Central America-(Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras), Cuba, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Cayman Islands. The tail is often held upright while defending territory or searching for food.
View Wikipedia Record: Polioptila caerulea

Infraspecies

Polioptila caerulea caerulea
Polioptila caerulea caesiogaster
Polioptila caerulea comiteca
Polioptila caerulea cozumelae
Polioptila caerulea deppei
Polioptila caerulea gracilis
Polioptila caerulea mexicana
Polioptila caerulea nelsoni
Polioptila caerulea obscura
Polioptila caerulea perplexa

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
18
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 5.74037
EDGE Score: 1.90812
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  6 grams
Birth Weight [3]  1 grams
Breeding Habitat [2]  Temperate eastern forests, Temperate western forests
Wintering Geography [2]  Widespread
Wintering Habitat [2]  Generalist
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  100 %
Forages - Mid-High [4]  50 %
Forages - Understory [4]  50 %
Clutch Size [5]  3
Clutches / Year [3]  2
Fledging [1]  12 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  280,000,000
Incubation [3]  13 days
Mating System [7]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [3]  4 years
Migration [6]  Intracontinental
Female Maturity [3]  10 months 19 days
Male Maturity [3]  10 months 19 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

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Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Caribbean Islands Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent And The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks And Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands - British, Virgin Islands - U.S. No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No

Habitat Vegetation Classification

Name Location  Website 
Interior Low Plateau Mesic Bottomland Forest United States (Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio)
Maple - Ash - Elm Swamp Canada (Ontario); United States (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan)
Midwestern Cottonwood - Black Willow - Silver Maple Floodplain Forest United States (Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana)
Mississippi River Red Maple - Water-locust Bottomland Forest United States (Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas)
Overcup Oak - Sweetgum Bottomland Forest United States (Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana)
Pin Oak - Post Oak Lowland Flatwoods United States (Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas)
Pond-cypress Depression Forest United States (Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina)
Silver Maple - Sugarberry - Pecan Floodplain Forest United States (Tennessee, Illinois, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana)
Silver Maple Floodplain Levee Forest Canada (Ontario); United States (New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts)
Southern Green Ash - Elm - Sugarberry Floodplain Forest United States (Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama)
Swamp Chestnut Oak - Sweetgum Floodplain Forest United States (Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois)
Terrace Hardwood Floodplain Forest United States (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts)
Willow Oak Bottomland Flatwoods Forest United States (Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas)

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Audio

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Provided by Birds Of A Feather on Myxer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan 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
♦ 2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 3de 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
♦ 4Hamish 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
♦ 5Jetz 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
♦ 6Myers, 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
♦ 7Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
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
Audio software provided by SoundManager 2
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