Saltator
Encyclopedia
Saltator is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of songbird
Songbird
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...

s of the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

. They are traditionally placed in the cardinal
Cardinal (bird)
The Cardinals or Cardinalidae are a family of passerine birds found in North and South America. The South American cardinals in the genus Paroaria are placed in another family, the Thraupidae ....

 family (Cardinalidae) but now seem to be closer to tanager
Tanager
The tanagers comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has an American distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux...

s (Thraupidae). Their English name is also saltator, except for two dark species known by the more general grosbeak
Grosbeak
Grosbeak is a form taxon containing several species of seed-eating passerine birds with large beaks. Although they all belong to the superfamily Passeroidea, they are not a natural group but rather a polyphyletic assemblage of distantly related songbirds....

.

Saltator is Latin for "leaper" or "dancer". Louis Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot was a French ornithologist.Vieillot described a large number of birds for the first time, especially those he encountered during the time he spent in the West Indies and North America, and 26 genera established by him are still in use...

 applied it to this genus because of the heavy way the birds hop on the ground.

Classification

The saltators as traditionally defined are apparently neither monophyletic nor allied with the cardinals. As already noted over 100 years ago, they are a morphologically
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 diverse group, encompassing generally robust and fairly drab nine-primaried oscine
Nine-primaried oscine
The nine-primaried oscines are a group of songbird families from the superfamily Passeroidea. It is composed of the Fringillidae , Emberizidae , Parulidae , Thraupidae , Cardinalidae , Icteridae and the monotypic Peucedramidae...

s. The different species may appear more similar to grosbeak
Grosbeak
Grosbeak is a form taxon containing several species of seed-eating passerine birds with large beaks. Although they all belong to the superfamily Passeroidea, they are not a natural group but rather a polyphyletic assemblage of distantly related songbirds....

s, tanager
Tanager
The tanagers comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has an American distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux...

s or even shrike
Shrike
Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of thirty-one species in three genera. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes were also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits...

s than to cardinals, and the patterns of their eggs
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

 are also conspicuously diverse. Altogether, the "genus" seems more like an assemblage of species brought together largely by seeming even less close to other groups than to each other, rather than by a very close relationship. More extreme cases of adaptive radiation
Adaptive radiation
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. Starting with a recent single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different...

 exist in birds, but this process hardly ever occurs outside island groups like Hawaiian honeycreeper
Hawaiian honeycreeper
Hawaiian honeycreepers are small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. Some authorities still categorize this group as a family Drepanididae, but in recent years, most authorities consider them a subfamily, Drepanidinae, of Fringillidae, the finch family...

s, vanga
Vanga
The vangas are a group of little-known small to medium-sized passerine birds restricted to Madagascar and the Comoros. They are usually classified as the family Vangidae. There are about 22 species, depending on taxonomy...

s, Malagasy warblers or the famous Galápagos finches.

The latest comprehensive analysis of the genus was a 1977 study which today would not be accepted whole-cloth because it followed the phenetic methodology then in vogue but now considered outdated. Even in that study the case for Saltator monophyly was weak. Where Saltator species have been included in cladistic studies they appear to be related to various tanager
Tanager
The tanagers comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has an American distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux...

s. If this is verified after a more thorough study, they would probably be transferred to this family. Preliminary work seems to support this, but for now they are best considered incertae sedis
Incertae sedis
, is a term used to define a taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Uncertainty at specific taxonomic levels is attributed by , , and similar terms.-Examples:*The fossil plant Paradinandra suecica could not be assigned to any...

.

Species

  • Lesser Antillean Saltator
    Lesser Antillean Saltator
    The Lesser Antillean Saltator is a species of songbird traditionally placed in the family Cardinalidae, but as it seems it is closer to the tanagers ....

    , Saltator albicollis
  • Streaked Saltator
    Streaked Saltator
    The Streaked Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family. It is found in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.-References:...

    , Saltator striatipectus
  • Greyish Saltator, Saltator coerulescens
  • Buff-throated Saltator
    Buff-throated Saltator
    The Buff-throated Saltator, Saltator maximus, is a seedeating bird. Traditionally placed in the cardinal family , it actually seems to be closer to the tanagers . It breeds from southeastern Mexico to western Ecuador and northeastern Brazil.This is the type species of Saltator...

    , Saltator maximus
  • Black-headed Saltator
    Black-headed Saltator
    The Black-headed Saltator, Saltator atriceps, is a seedeating bird. Traditionally placed in the cardinal family , it actually seems to be closer to the tanagers . It breeds from central Mexico to eastern Panama....

    , Saltator atriceps
  • Slate-coloured Grosbeak
    Slate-coloured Grosbeak
    The Slate-coloured Grosbeak is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family. Most of its range is the Amazon in South America, but it is also found in forests of the Chocó in Ecuador and Colombia, and southern Central America from Panama to Honduras.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. ...

    , Saltator grossus
  • Black-throated Grosbeak
    Black-throated Grosbeak
    The Black-throated Grosbeak is a species of songbird. Traditionally placed in the cardinal family , it actually seems to be closer to the tanagers – see the genus article for details....

    , Saltator fuliginosus
  • Black-winged Saltator
    Black-winged Saltator
    The Black-winged Saltator is a South American songbird species. The saltators are traditionally placed in the cardinal family , but actually seem to be closer to tanagers ....

    , Saltator atripennis
  • Green-winged Saltator
    Green-winged Saltator
    The Green-winged Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family.It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and ranges into the southern cerrado and the pantanal....

    , Saltator similis
  • Orinocan Saltator
    Orinocan Saltator
    The Orinoco Saltator or Orinocan Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family.It is found in Venezuela in areas west, north, and upon the Orinoco River region and to the Caribbean coast; also border regions in adjacent northeast Colombia...

    , Saltator orenocensis
  • Black-cowled Saltator
    Black-cowled Saltator
    The Black-Cowled Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family.It is found in the southern border region of Ecuador and the northern border region of Peru....

    , Saltator nigriceps
  • Golden-billed Saltator
    Golden-billed Saltator
    The Golden-billed Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Emberizidae family.It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay; also the regions of the southern pantanal, along the Paraguay River.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests,...

    , Saltator aurantiirostris
  • Thick-billed Saltator
    Thick-billed Saltator
    The Thick-billed Saltator is a species of saltator in the Cardinalidae family. It is found in highland Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil, far northeastern Argentina , and perhaps far eastern Paraguay...

    , Saltator maxillosus
  • Masked Saltator
    Masked Saltator
    The Masked Saltator is a species of cardinal in the Cardinalidae family.It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru...

    , Saltator cinctus
  • Black-throated Saltator
    Black-throated Saltator
    The Black-throated Saltator is a species of songbird. Traditionally placed in the Cardinalidae family, it probably belongs in the Thraupidae instead....

    , Saltator atricollis
  • Rufous-bellied Saltator
    Rufous-bellied Saltator
    The Rufous-bellied Saltator is a species of songbird found in a few areas in the eastern Andes of southern Bolivia and extreme northern Argentina....

    , "Saltator" rufiventris: does not belong in this genus (related to Delothraupis and Dubusia), but remains here pending a solution to the problem.

External links

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