Molothrus bonariensis Gmelin, 1789

Crespo-Perez, Veronica, Pinto, C. Miguel, Carrion, Juan Manuel, Jarrin-E, Ruben D., Poveda, Cristian & de Vries, Tjitte, 2016, The Shiny Cowbird, Molothrusbonariensis (Gmelin, 1789) (Aves: Icteridae), at 2,800 m asl in Quito, Ecuador, Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 8184-8184 : 8184

Molothrus bonariensis Gmelin, 1789

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Verónica Crespo-Pérez; C. Miguel Pinto; individualCount: 2; lifeStage: juvenile; Taxon: genus: Molothrus; specificEpithet: bonariensis; scientificNameAuthorship: Gmelin, 1789; vernacularName: Shiny Cowbird, Vaquero brilloso; Location: continent: South America; country: ECUADOR; stateProvince: Pichincha; municipality: Quito; verbatimElevation: 2800 m; verbatimCoordinateSystem: decimal degrees; decimalLatitude: -0.2111111; decimalLongitude: -78.49111; geodeticDatum: WGS84; Identification: identifiedBy: Tjitte de Vries; Event: eventDate: 2015-04-11; habitat: urban university campus

Diagnosis

The observed individuals of Shiny Cowbird matched the morphological and behavioral characterstics of the species (Fig. 3a, b, c). The most remarkable characteristic was the dull grayish coloration on the dorsum, but paler on the venter and throat, and the greyish white eyebrows ( Hilty and Brown 1986, Restall et al. 2006). For Ecuador, three subspecies have been documented: M. b. aequatorialis in the north, M. b. occidentalis in the south, and M. b. riparius in the east ( Restall et al. 2006). The juveniles that we observed have a clear coloration (Fig. 3a, b) that matches that of the subspecies M. b. occidentalis, and not that of M. b. aequatorialis - which is darker- as would be expected for the location of Quito in the north of the country. Nevertheless, juvenile coloration might not match that of adults and more studies should be conducted for subspecific assignment perhaps using an integrative taxonomic approach combining molecular, morphological and biogeographic information.