SPECIES

Vermilion Cardinal Cardinalis phoeniceus Scientific name definitions

Adriana Rodríguez-Ferraro
Version: 2.0 — Published February 23, 2024

Systematics

Systematics History

Cardinalis phoeniceus Bonaparte, 1838, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1837:111.—“the country south of the Bay of Honduras” (27); type from Venezuela, fide Hartert (28).

The holotype, a male collected on an unknown date by an unknown collector, is held at the American Museum of Natural History, New York (AMNH 515537) (29). Hartert (28) claimed that this specimen was the type of Bonaparte’s name, based on a name written by Gould on the specimen in the collection of the Zoological Society of London but never published by Gould. In contrast, Sharpe (30:167) had claimed that the type is an adult male specimen from Venezuela and originally in the Gould collection, held in what is now the Natural History Museum, Tring (NHMUK 1837.3.15.162); in light of Hartert’s claim that the British Museum was not the holotype, it was discounted as such by Warren and Harrison (31). The earliest label on the AMNH specimen is that of Thomas Campbell Eyton (1809–1880), who said that the specimen was from “Honduras” and came to him from the Zoological Society of London. There is no indication that the specimen was ever in Gould’s private collection, but he certainly might have annotated a specimen in the Zoological Society of London collection while he was working there (29).

Synonyms:
Cardinalis granadensis Lafresnaye, 1847, Revue Zoologique 10:74.—Río Hacha, Colombia. The holotype, an adult of indeterminate sex collected on an unknown date by an unknown collector, is held at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, Philadelphia (ANSP 9962) (32).
Cardinalis robinsoni Richmond, 1895, Auk 12:370.—Margarita Island, Venezuela (33). The holotype, an adult male collected on 8 July 1895 by Wirt Robinson (1864‒1929), is held at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (USNM 151072) (33, 34).

Vermilion Cardinal was first placed in the genus Cardinalis, along with Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and Pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatus) (27); however, it was later assigned to the genus Richmondena Mathews, 1918 (4), along with Northern Cardinal, although Pyrrhuloxia (Pyrrhuloxia Bonaparte, 1850) was maintained in its own genus, sister to the other two (4). This schema was widely used (albeit not wholly accepted) for nearly four decades (35, 36, 37, 38, 39), until several reassessments of the relationships and genera for the three species (40, 41, 42) led to the assignment of all three species (Northern Cardinal, Pyrrhuloxia, and Vermilion Cardinal) to the genus Cardinalis Bonaparte, 1838 (43). See also Related Species.

Geographic Variation

Information related to geographic variation of morphological characters is needed since it has not been investigated for this species.

Phylogeographical analyses, based on mitochondrial DNA (2,320 bp), revealed a high overall genetic diversity (haplotype diversity = 0.9851; nucleotide diversity = 0.0039; n = 91) for six Venezuelan populations (three in the east of the country and three in the west) of Vermilion Cardinal (44). Haplotype diversity exceeded 75% for all populations. The greatest nucleotide diversity was found on Margarita Island (eastern Venezuela, ND = 0.0054) but the lowest was found in two other eastern populations (ND Araya Peninsula = 0.0008, ND Clarines-Píritu = 0.0004). Most haplotypes were restricted to a single population, and only a few haplotypes were shared between neighboring localities in eastern Venezuela (Araya Peninsula shared haplotypes with Margarita Island and Clarines-Píritu shared haplotypes with Margarita Island). A certain degree of differentiation among populations was identified as indicated by significant pairwise values of Fst; no significant correlations, however, were detected between pairwise Fst and geographic distance among populations (R0 = 0.004, P = 0.469) (44).

Subspecies

Monotypic. The name robinsoni was proposed for the Margarita Island (Venezuela) population, but the traits of these birds fall within the range of variation of mainland birds, except perhaps in crest size, which Richmond described as being shorter than that of mainland birds (33).

Related Species

Species relationships within Cardinalis have changed over time. Cardinalis phoeniceus was considered more closely related to Cardinalis sinuatus (45) and, later, to form a superspecies with Cardinalis cardinalis (43). A phenetic analysis based on skeletal characters found that the three Cardinalis species clustered together, but C. cardinalis and C. sinuatus were more similar to each other than to C. phoeniceus (46). Molecular analyses based on mitochondrial DNA supported the monophyly of Cardinalis, either when only cardinalis and phoeniceus were included (47) or when all three species were included (48). The latter study recovered Cardinalis as being more related to the genera Caryothraustes, Rhodothraupis, and Periporphyrus, but although relationships within Cardinalis were not fully resolved, the authors suggested that phoeniceus and sinuatus are sister species (48). These results were subsequently supported by an analysis combining mitochondrial and nuclear genes, which indicated that phoeniceus and sinuatus are the most closely related species within Cardinalis (49), thereby confirming Meyer de Schauensee’s (45) prediction.

Hybridization

Not reported.

Nomenclature

Vernacular Names

In Venezuela, the Vermilion Cardinal is known as "Cardenal Coriano" (1) or simply "Cardenal," but on Margarita Island, the species is referred to as "Guayamate," a name of Guaiquerí origin. In Colombia, local names include "Cardenal Guajiro," "Rey Guajiro," "Cardenal Rojo," and "Cardenal Bermejo" (50). In the Wayúu language, the Vermilion Cardinal is known as "lisho" (50; see also Other: Ethno-ornithology).

Scientific Name

Cardinalis refers to cardinals in the Catholic church who wear scarlet robes; phoeniceus refers to the bird's crimson color (51).

Fossil History

There are no fossil records of this species.

Recommended Citation

Rodríguez-Ferraro, A. (2024). Vermilion Cardinal (Cardinalis phoeniceus), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (F. Medrano and B. K. Keeney, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.vercar1.02