Blue dacnis

Blue dacnis
Adult male
Adult female in São Paulo, Brazil
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Thraupidae
Genus: Dacnis
Species:
D. cayana
Binomial name
Dacnis cayana
(Linnaeus, 1766)
Synonyms
  • Motacilla cayana (protonym)
  • Dacnis coerebicolor

The blue dacnis or turquoise honeycreeper (Dacnis cayana) is a small passerine bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found in Central America from Honduras to Panama, on Trinidad, and in every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay.

Taxonomy

In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue dacnis in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in "Cayenne" (French Guiana). He used the French name Le Pepit bleu de Cayenne and the Latin name Sylvia cayanensis caerulea. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the blue dacnis. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial Motacilla cayana and cited Brisson's work. The specific epithet cayana is from Cayenne. This species is now placed in the genus Dacnis that was introduced in 1816 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier with the blue dacnis as the type species.

The blue dacnis has these eight subspecies:

The purplish honeycreeper (Chlorophanes purpurascens), a bird from Venezuela known only from the type specimen, is considered to be an intergeneric hybrid between the green honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) and either the red-legged honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus) or the blue dacnis.

Description

The blue dacnis is 11 to 12 cm (4.3 to 4.7 in) long and weighs 10 to 15.5 g (0.35 to 0.55 oz). It has a thin pointed bill. The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males of the nominate subspecies D. c. cayana have a mostly turquoise-blue head and nape with a thin black mask from the lores to just past the eye. Their mantle and back are black; the color narrows to a point just above the rump. Their scapulars, the sides of their back, and their rump and uppertail coverts are turquoise-blue. Their tail is black with very thin blue edges on the outer two or three pairs of feathers. Their upperwing coverts are mostly black with blue edges. Their flight feathers are black with wide blue edges. The center of their throat is black and the rest of their underparts are turquoise. Adult females are mostly green with paler underparts than upperparts. Their head is mostly bluish and their throat gray. Both sexes of all subspecies have a dark red to reddish brown iris, a dusky bill with a pale gray inner half of the mandible, and pinkish legs and feet.

The other subspecies of the blue dacnis differ from the nominate and each other thus:

Distribution and habitat

The subspecies of the blue dacnis are found thus:

The blue dacnis inhabits a variety of moist to wet landscapes including terra firme and várzea forests, secondary forest, gallery forest, and somewhat open areas with trees and shrubs. In Honduras it is found below 750 m (2,500 ft). In Costa Rica it ranges in elevation from sea level to 900 m (3,000 ft) on the Caribbean slope and 1,200 m (3,900 ft) on the Pacific slope. In Venezuela it occurs below 1,200 m (3,900 ft) north of the Orinoco River and 1,400 m (4,600 ft) south of it. It reaches 1,100 m (3,600 ft) in Colombia, 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Ecuador, 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Peru, and 1,400 m (4,600 ft) in Brazil.

Behavior

Movement

The blue dacnis is almost entirely a year-round resident though some seasonal elevational movements have been noted in Colombia.

Feeding

The blue dacnis feeds on arthropods, fruit, seeds, and possibly nectar. In a study in Panama, out of 26 species of plants the species fed on, more than a third of its take was Miconia berries and a quarter was from the family Euphorbiaceae. Other fruits are from Cecropia and Clusia, and it will feed on bananas at bird feeders. It primarily forages singly or in pairs, but groups of about 12 have been noted. It almost always is seen as a member of a mixed-species feeding flock. It feeds acrobatically, leaning, reaching, and hanging upside down to reach fruit and insects. It also takes insects in mid-air with a sally from a perch.

Breeding

The blue dacnis breeds between May and October in Costa Rica but its breeding seasons elsewhere are not known. Its nest is a deep cup, almost a pouch, built from soft plant fibers and seed down. It typically is suspended between twigs at the outer part of a tree. The clutch is two eggs. The incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.

Vocalization

The song of the blue dacnis in Peru is "a wheezy series of thin, high notes, somewhat variable in pattern, for example: wee-tee tsee-tew wee-tee tsee-tew wee-tee, interspersed with call notes". Its calls are weak and include "high, thin tsit notes and a high chit or chit-it or tseep".

Status

The IUCN has assessed the blue dacnis as being of Least Concern. It has an extremely large range; its estimated population of at least 50 million mature individuals is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is uncommon in Honduras, "fairly uncommon" in Costa Rica, common in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, "fairly common" in Peru, and "common to frequent" in Brazil. It is found "in many protected areas, and vast areas of its range in the Guianas and Amazonia contain extensive intact habitat that is unprotected but at little immediate risk".

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2021). "Blue Dacnis Dacnis cayana". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2021 e.T22722991A137083549. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T22722991A137083549.en. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  2. 1 2 Ajodha, Crystal (2012). "Dacnis cayana (Blue Dacnis or Turquoise Honeycreeper)" (PDF). The Online Guide to the Animals of Trinidad and Tobago. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (April 2026). "Tanagers and allies". IOC World Bird List. v 15.2. Retrieved 2 August 2026.
  4. ↑ Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Vol. Supplement. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. pp. 534–535, Plate 28 fig 1. The two stars (**) at the start of the paragraph indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen.
  5. 1 2 Allen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335. hdl:2246/678.
  6. ↑ Linnaeus, Carl (1766). Systema naturae: per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 1 (12th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 336.
  7. ↑ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  8. ↑ Cuvier, Georges (1816). Le Règne animal distribué d'après son organisation: pour servir de base a l'histoire naturelle des animaux et d'introduction a l'anatomie comparée (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Déterville. p. 395.
  9. ↑ Storer, Robert W. (1957). "The Hybrid Origin of Chlorophanes purpurascens" (PDF). Auk. 74 (4): 507. doi:10.2307/4081756. JSTOR 4081756.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Hilty, S. L. (2020). Blue Dacnis (Dacnis cayana), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bludac1.01 retrieved August 21, 2026
  11. 1 2 3 Garrigues, Richard; Dean, Robert (2007). The Birds of Costa Rica. Ithaca: Zona Tropical/Comstock/Cornell University Press. pp. 290–291. ISBN 978-0-8014-7373-9.
  12. 1 2 3 Fagan, Jesse; Komar, Oliver (2016). Field Guide to Birds of Northern Central America. Peterson Field Guides. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 366–367. ISBN 978-0-544-37326-6.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 McMullan, Miles; Donegan, Thomas M.; Quevedo, Alonso (2010). Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Bogotá: Fundación ProAves. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-9827615-0-2.
  14. 1 2 3 Ridgely, Robert S.; Greenfield, Paul J. (2001). The Birds of Ecuador: Field Guide. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 615. ISBN 978-0-8014-8721-7.
  15. 1 2 3 Hilty, Steven L. (2003). Birds of Venezuela (second ed.). Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 777.
  16. 1 2 3 van Perlo, Ber (2009). A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 380–381. ISBN 978-0-19-530155-7.
  17. 1 2 3 Schulenberg, T.S.; Stotz, D.F.; Lane, D.F.; O'Neill, J.P.; Parker, T.A. III (2010). Birds of Peru. Princeton Field Guides (revised and updated ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 572. ISBN 978-0691130231.

Further reading