Black Catbird

SCI Name:  Melanoptila glabrirostris
Protonym:  M[elanoptila]. glabrirostris Proc.Zool.Soc.London(1857) (1857), Pt25 no.344 p.275
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Mimidae / Melanoptila
Taxonomy Code:  blacat1
Type Locality:  in rep. Honduras, prope urbem Omoa.
Author:  Sclater, PL
Publish Year:  1858
IUCN Status:  Near Threatened

DEFINITIONS

MELANOPTILA
(Mimidae; Ϯ Black Catbird M. glabrirostris) Gr. μελας melas, μελανος  melanos  black; πτιλον ptilon  plumage; "MELANOPTILA, gen. nov.  Melanoptila, genus novum e familia TURDINARUM.  Rostrum rectum, modicæ longitudinis, fere ut in genere Turdo, sed tenuius et vibrissis rictalibus nullis: alæ breves, ad finem subcaudalium attingentes, remige prima brevi, secunda secundarias co-æquante, tertia longiore, sed a quarta, quinta, et sexta, æqualibus et longissimis, superata: cauda longa, apice rotundata: pedes antice scutellatæ prout in genere Turdo.   ....   9. M. GLABRIROSTRIS, sp. nov.  M. nigra unicolor, cæruleo-nitens: alis caudaque æneo magis splendentibus: rostro et pedibus nigris.   ...   I know of no other American form which much resembles it in plumage or in structure, and am rather puzzled as to its proper arrangement in the Natural System.  It must however, I think, come within the limits of the family Turdidæ, and for the present, I am rather inclined to place it along with the Mock-birds (Miminæ), with the general structure of some of which it seems most nearly to accord, except in the absolute want of any signs of rictal bristles, whence I have called it glabrirostris." (P. Sclater 1858); "Melanoptila Sclater, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 25 (1857), p. 275. Type, by monotypy, Melanoptila glabrirostris Sclater." (Davis & Miller in Peters 1960, IX, 441).

glabrirostris
L. glaber  smooth, hair-less; -rostris  -billed  < rostrum  beak (see Melanoptila).