Vorstman's Guideto the birds of the Caribbean

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Tanagers | Thraupidae

Tangaren | Tangaras

The tanagers form a large and highly varied family of American songbirds; more than forty species occur in the region. In recent revisions several Caribbean groups, such as the spindalises and the palm-tanagers, have been split off as families of their own, while the grassquits and bullfinches had already been moved to the tanagers. In the Antilles most species belong to a Caribbean group that also includes Darwin's finches: the Bananaquit, which drinks nectar with its curved bill and builds a domed nest, the grassquits of the genera Tiaris, Melanospiza and Phonipara, the bullfinches of Loxigilla and Melopyrrha, and the Jamaican genera Loxipasser and Euneornis. They mostly have a short, thick bill and black, olive-green or grey plumage, sometimes with red or yellow. Trinidad and Tobago also hold colourful fruit and insect eaters such as Tangara, Thraupis, Ramphocelus, Tachyphonus, Dacnis, Cyanerpes and Tersina, and seed eaters such as Sporophila, Volatinia and Sicalis. Food ranges from seeds and fruit to nectar and insects; most species build an open cup nest.

Native species 41 species

Species that occur here by nature: breeding birds, winter visitors and passage migrants. They are arranged by genus, in the sequence of the list.

Tersina 1 species

Cyanerpes 2 species

Dacnis 1 species

Chlorophanes 1 species

Volatinia 1 species

Loriotus 1 species

Tachyphonus 1 species

Ramphocelus 1 species

Conirostrum 1 species

Sicalis 2 species

Saltator 3 species

Sporophila 6 species

Coereba 1 species

Tiaris 1 species

Euneornis 1 species

Melopyrrha 3 species

Loxipasser 1 species

Phonipara 1 species

Loxigilla 2 species

Melanospiza 2 species

Asemospiza 1 species

Paroaria 1 species

Tangara 2 species

Thraupis 2 species

Ixothraupis 1 species

Stilpnia 1 species