Margarops fuscatus

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Deuterostomia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
Superclassis: Tetrapoda
Classis: Aves
Subclassis: Carinatae
Infraclassis: Neornithes
Parvclassis: Neognathae
Ordo: Passeriformes
Subordo: Passeri
Parvordo: Passerida
Superfamilia: Muscicapoidea
Familia: Mimidae
Genus: Margarops
Species: Margarops fuscatus
Subspecies: M. f. bonairensis - M. f. densirostris - M. f. fuscatus - M. f. klinikowskii

Name

Margarops fuscatus (Vieillot, 1808)

Vernacular names

* Azotador de ojos perlados

Reference

Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique septentrionale 2(1807) p.1 pl.57

The Pearly-eyed Thrasher (Margarops fuscatus) is a bird found in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and Antilles. Its genus, Margarops, is considered monotypic today; formerly the Scaly-breasted Thrasher was placed here too. The present species, however, is now known to be closer to the Cinclocerthia tremblers (Hunt et al. 2001, Barber et al. 2004).

It prefers to live in bushes and trees in mountain forests and coffee plantations. The Pearly-eyed Thrasher is described as an aggressive, opportunistic omnivore that feeds primarily on large insects, but also feeds on fruits and berries, and will occasionally eat lizards, frogs, small crabs and other bird’s eggs and nestlings. It grows to 28 to 30 cm (11 to 11.8 inches) in length.

This species nests in cavities. In Puerto Rico, it is known to compete with the critically endangered Puerto Rican Amazon for nesting sites and may even destroy the eggs of this species.[1]

While this is not a migratory bird, considerable gene flow between populations appears to have taken place at least until fairly recently in its evolutionary history. Still, two subspecies can be identified: Margarops fuscatus fuscatus which is found between the Greater Antilles and Antigua and Barbuda, M. f. densirostris, occurring from Montserrat and Guadeloupe southwards. When exactly the Pearly-eyed Thrasher lineage diverged from its relatives cannot be said with reasonable certainty at the moment, as no fossils are known and the standard molecular clock model cannot be applied to the Mimidae as mutation rates seem to have varied over time.(Hunt et al. 2003)

References

^ Ellis, Richard (2004). No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species. New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 167. ISBN 0-06-055804-0.

Barber, Brian R.; Martínez-Gómez, Juan E. & Peterson, A. Townsend (2004): Systematic position of the Socorro mockingbird Mimodes graysoni. J. Avian Biol. 35: 195-198. doi:10.1111/j.0908-8857.2004.03233.x (HTML abstract)

BirdLife International (2004). Margarops fuscatus. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 26 April 2007. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern

Hunt, Jeffrey S.; Bermingham, Eldredge; & Ricklefs, Robert E. (2001): Molecular systematics and biogeography of Antillean thrashers, tremblers, and mockingbirds (Aves: Mimidae). Auk 118(1): 35–55. DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2001)118[0035:MSABOA]2.0.CO;2 HTML fulltext without images