Hispaniolan palm crow

Hispaniolan palm crow
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Corvidae
Genus:	Corvus
Species:	C. palmarum
Binomial name
Corvus palmarum Württemberg, 1835

The Hispaniolan palm crow (Corvus palmarum) is a relatively small corvid endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (in Haiti and the Dominican Republic) where it was formerly very frequent, but is now reduced in population.

Taxonomy

The Hispaniolan palm crow was formally described in 1835 under the binomial name Corvus palmarum by the German naturalist Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg.^[2] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.^[3] This crow was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Cuban palm crow (Corvus minutus).^[3][4][5]

Despite being sympatric with the white-necked crow (Corvus leucognaphalus) on Hispaniola, it appears to be more closely related to the fish crow (C. ossifragus) of the East Coast of the United States, as well as two smaller species, the Tamaulipas crow (C. imparatus) and Sinaloan crow (C. sinaloae) of Mexico, than the white-necked crow, which is more related to the Cuban crow (Corvus nasicus) and the Jamaican crow (Corvus jamaicensis), the other two Caribbean corvids. This indicates two distinct arrivals of crows onto the island (with the ancestor of the two palm crows being a later arrival), and a resulting niche differentiation, similar to C. nasicus and C. minutus on Cuba.

The following cladogram is based on phylogenetic study of the Corvidae by Knud Jønsson and collaborators that was published in 2012.^[6]

Habitat

The local name for the palm crow is cao in the Dominican Republic (where it is locally common, mainly in mountain pine forests and also around the area of Lake Enriquillo), which is onomatopoeic of the simple and repetitive call of this bird.

References