Nesospingus speculiferus
The Puerto Rican tanager is a small passerine bird endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. It is the only member of the genus Nesospingus and has historically been placed in the tanager family, but recent studies indicate it as either belonging in its own family Nesospingidae or as being a member of Phaenicophilidae. Its closest relatives are likely the spindalises. The Puerto Rican tanager is known to locals as llorosa, which means 'cryer'.

Mike's Birds · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Puerto Rican tanagerPBDB
- Sits inside
- NesospingusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Nesospingus speculiferus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Pleistocene91%
- Holocene9%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Nesospingus speculiferus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Nesospingus speculiferus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
45 taxa- Agelaius xanthomus2 sites
- Antrostomus noctitherus2 sites
- Capella anthonyi2 sites
- Coccyzus vieilloti2 sites
- Columbina passerina2 sites
- Geotrygon larva2 sites
- Geotrygon montana2 sites
- Icterus portoricensis2 sites
- Margarops fuscatus2 sites
- Megascops nudipes2 sites
- Melanerpes portoricensis2 sites
- Mimus polyglottos2 sites
- Patagioenas inornata2 sites
- Patagioenas leucocephala2 sites
- Patagioenas squamosa2 sites
- Spindalis portoricensis2 sites
- Turdus plumbeus ardosiaceus2 sites
- Tyrannus caudifasciatus taylori2 sites
- Tyrannus dominicensis2 sites
- Zenaida aurita zenaida2 sites
- Accipiter striatus1 site
- Ammodramus savannarum1 site
- Aves1 site
- Brachyphylla cavernarum1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Nesospingus speculiferus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Nesospingus speculiferus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mike's Birds
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Nesospingus speculiferus · FMNH:Birds:346158
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itNesospingus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lawrence 1875)