Turquoise Tanager - BirdForum Opus

Subspecies boliviana
Photo by AmazonSupreme12
Amazonas, Brazil, March 2016

Tangara mexicana

Includes: White-bellied Tanager

Identification

14 cm (5½ in); Longer tailed tanager with a dark, stout, pointed bill

• Dark blue overall plumage
• Turquoise shoulder patch
• Yellow lower underparts

Distribution

Trinidadian race, T. m. vieiloti
Photo by Steve G
Asa Wright Centre, Trinidad, May 2006

Caribbean and South America:
Caribbean: occurs only on Trinidad
South America: Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil

Taxonomy

Subspecies

T. m. brasiliensis, White-bellied Tanager
Photo © by Fritz73
Porto Seguro, Brazil, 8 September 2017

There are 4 subspecies^[1]:

• T. m. media:

• Extreme eastern Colombia to eastern Venezuela and north-western Brazil

• T. m. vieilloti: darker blue head and breast and more vividly yellow underparts

Trinidad

• T. m. boliviana:

• Eastern Colombia to northern Bolivia and western Amazonian Brazil

• T. m. mexicana:

• Tropical zone of the Guianas

• T. m. brasiliensis:

• Coastal south-eastern Brazil (southern Bahia to Rio de Janeiro) and northern Brazil (Amazon Basin)

Subspecies T. m. brasiliensis is, at times, referred to as a White-bellied Tanager.
Some field guides will also show it as having been split.

Habitat

Borders of humid forests, disturbed forests and clearings.

Behaviour

Breeding

They construct a bulky cup nest in a tree or shrub. The clutch consists of 3 greyish-green eggs with brown blotches, which is incubated by the female.

Diet

Their diet consists of fruit and insects.

Gallery

Click on photo for larger image

• 

  Subspecies mexicana
  Peter R. Bono
  from Canopy Tower, Manu Wildlife Center (approx. 320m), Peru, August 2008

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Lepage D. (2021) [Avibase - https://avibase.ca/186AE936 ]. Retrieved 16 July 2021
3. Hart, J. and K. J. Burns (2020). Turquoise Tanager (Tangara mexicana), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.turtan1.01
4. guyanawiki

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Turquoise Tanager. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 13 January 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Turquoise_Tanager

External Links

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