Order
Passeriformes
Family
Thraupidae
Genus
Melopyrrha
 
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Version 1.0

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 - Puerto Rican Bullfinch
 - Puerto Rican Bullfinch
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Puerto Rican Bullfinch Melopyrrha portoricensis

John Faaborg and Amber Wiewel
Version: 1.0 — Published December 2, 2011

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Introduction

The name "bullfinch" does not occur among birds of continental North America, but its widespread occurrence in the West Indies must reflect both the early history of colonization of that region, and the fact that most of these islands remained as British or French colonies until fairly recently. Any West Indian island of decent size has at least one species of bullfinch, with the Cuban Bullfinch (Melopyrrha nigra) on Cuba, some of its offshore islands, and Grand Cayman; the Greater Antillean Bullfinch (Loxigilla violacea) on most of the larger Bahamas, Hispaniola and its satellites, and Jamaica; the Lesser Antillean Bullfinch (Loxigilla noctis) on all the Lesser Antilles except the Grenadines and Barbados; the Barbados Bullfinch (Loxigilla barbadensis) on Barbados; and the Puerto Rican Bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis) on Puerto Rico and, formerly, on St. Christopher’s. All of these bullfinches are distinctive for having males that are black (except for the Barbados Bullfinch, where males look like the standard bullfinch female), with the Cuban Bullfinch having some white in the wing, and the three species of Loxigilla showing reddish-brown under-tail coverts and varying amounts of reddish-brown in the head. Loxigilla females vary from being paler black than males (Greater Antillean Bullfinch and Puerto Rican Bullfinch) to being mostly brownish-olive. Juveniles of all species of Loxigilla are olive-brown to olive-green, but with the distinctive reddish-brown undertail coverts.

The endemic Puerto Rican Bullfinch (L. p. portoricensis) is widespread across Puerto Rico, but is not always easy to see. More often it is detected by its cardinal-like song, a strongly whistled whip-whip-whip followed by a buzz that can be heard only if one is quite close. While the Puerto Rican population of this species still is common, its larger relative from St. Christopher (L. p. grandis) has not been positively identified there since the 1920s. Recent consideration of making the St. Christopher bullfinch a separate species was shelved pending further studies (Garrido and Wiley 2003, Banks et al. 2006). To locals, the Puerto Rican Bullfinch is known as the comeñame, comeñame puertoriqueño, capacho, or carpacho.

Distribution of the Puerto Rican Bullfinch - Range Map
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  • Year-round
  • Migration
  • Breeding
  • Non-Breeding
Distribution of the Puerto Rican Bullfinch

Recommended Citation

Faaborg, J. and A. Wiewel (2011). Puerto Rican Bullfinch (Melopyrrha portoricensis), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.purbul1.01