Yellow-rumped Cacique (Cacicus cela)

Order: Passeriformes | Family: Icteridae | IUCN Status: Least Concern

Identification & Behavior: ~28 cm (11 in). The Yellow-rumped Cacique is black with yellow shoulders and extensive bright yellow rump, upper and undertail coverts and nearly half the tail. The iris is sky blue.

 

The bill is pale yellowish.  It is similar to a Mountain Cacique (northern half of Peru) but is distinguished by ranging mostly in the Amazonian lowlands, having yellow upper and undertail coverts, and by having nearly half the tail yellow. Forages in the canopy and forest edges and nest in colonies often near human dwellings.

Status: The Yellow-rumped Cacique is common and widespread in the Amazonian lowlands. It is known to range up to 1300 m along the foothill of the Andes. It also occurs in humid semideciduous forests in extreme northwest Peru in Tumbes. The Yellow-rumped Cacique also occurs in Co, Ec, Br, and Bo.

Name in Spanish: Cacique de Lomo Amarillo.

Sub-species: Yellow-rumped Cacique (Cacicus cela flavicrissus), (P. L. Sclater), 1860. W Ecuador and extreme NW Peru.(Cacicus cela cela), Linnaeus, 1758.  Lowlands E of Andes.

Meaning of Name: Cacicus: Spanish Caique= Indian Chief. cela: Perhaps a shorthand form from Gr. Kelainos= black.