Spindalis is a genus consisting of four non-migratory species of bird. It is the only genus in the family Spindalidae. The species are mostly endemic to the West Indies; exceptions include populations of western spindalises on Cozumel Island, off the Yucatán Peninsula's east coast, and in extreme southeastern Florida. The species were traditionally considered aberrant members of the tanager family Thraupidae. Taxonomic studies recover them as a sister group to the Puerto Rican tanager (family Nesospingidae), and some group Spindalidae and Nesospingidae within the Phaenicophilidae.
Males are characterized by bright plumage while females are duller and have a different coloration. The nests are cup nest.
Taxonomy
The genus
Spindalis was introduced in 1837 by the naturalists William Jardine and Prideaux John Selby to accommodate a single species,
Spindalis bilineatus Jardine and Selby. This name is now considered a
junior synonym of
Tanagra nigricephala Robert Jameson, 1835, the Jamaican spindalis, which becomes the
type species by
monotypy.
The genus contains four species:
Taxonomy
Historically, the genus consisted of a single
Polytypic taxon species,
Spindalis zena (with the common name of stripe-headed tanager), with eight recognized subspecies—
S. z. townsendi and
S. z. zena from the
Bahamas,
S. z. pretrei from
Cuba,
S. z. salvini from
Grand Cayman,
S. z. dominicensis from Hispaniola and Gonâve Island,
S. z. portoricensis from Puerto Rico,
S. z. nigreciphala from Jamaica, and
S. z. benedicti from Cozumel Island. In 1997, based primarily on morphological and vocalization differences, three of the subspecies (
portoricensis,
dominicensis and
nigricephala) were elevated to species status.
S. zena remained a polytypic species with five recognized subspecies—
S. z. pretrei,
S. z. salvini,
S. z. benedicti,
S. z. townsendi, and
S. z. zena.
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