Turquoise Tanager

Tangara mexicana

Named mexicana despite living in Trinidad and South America, not Mexico. Travels in noisy mixed flocks through forest edges.

Population: Not quantified by IUCN/BirdLife as a global numeric figure; range described as large (~7 million km2) and species reported as common through much of it
Habitat: Humid lowland tropical/subtropical moist forest, forest edges, second growth and swamp forest; also plantations and rural gardens/semi-open cultivated areas
Fun fact: Despite its scientific name Tangara mexicana, the Turquoise Tanager has never been recorded in Mexico — Linnaeus based his 1766 description on specimens from Cayenne, French Guiana — and it instead ranges across the Amazon basin and northern South America in noisy, highly social flocks of its own kind.
Range: Northern and central South America: Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Trinidad, and Brazil (mainly the Amazon basin), extending south to Bolivia (with some sources also citing Ecuador/Peru at the range's western edge); despite the scientific name it does not occur in Mexico or Central America
Diet: Primarily fruit, taken while perched, supplemented with insects and other arthropods gleaned from thin twigs and foliage
Size: 0.14 m
Lifespan: 8.1 years

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