Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico; 10 November 2008 © Ed Schneider

For decades, authorities were uncertain whether the Rose-throated Becard, along with its closest relatives in the Americas, were cotingids (Cotingidae) or tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae). Recent genetic and older morphological evidence agree that becards and their allies share a single, most recent common ancestor among the tyrannoid suboscines and should be in a family of their own. The Rose-throated Becard is the only member of the subtropical and tropical family Tityridae that enters the United States as a non-vagrant, where it occurs irregularly and occasionally breeds in southeastern sections of Arizona and Texas. At the northern edge of its range, it favors wooded riparian habitats dominated by cottonwoods. Elsewhere in its range, which otherwise extends from Mexico to Costa Rica, and perhaps western Panama, it is found in a variety of forest types, woodlands, and scrubby second growth in wet and semi-arid climates that permit the bird to employ its foliage-sallying, hawking, and fruit-plucking behavior in open or semi-open edge situations. Rose-throated Becards are notable for their bulky, messy, enclosed nests that are globular or pyriform with an entrance near the bottom. The nests are suspended from the drooping ends of branchlets, often high above the ground. Clutch size varies from three to four eggs. Females alone incubate, but both sexes build nests and feed young. These becards are sexually dimorphic and socially monogamous. The male has a hidden white shoulder patch that it can erect during courtship. He also has a truncated ninth primary as an adult that is functionally mysterious. The species exhibits geographic plumage variation and currently eight subspecies are recognized, two of which reach the United States. Populations of Rose-throated Becard in northern Sonora and the Arizona borderland are migratory, while birds in Texas often occur during winter and the migratory status of that Gulf coastal subspecies is uncertain.

Recommended Citation

Greenlaw, Jon S. 2011. Rose-throated Becard (Pachyramphus aglaiae), Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; retrieved from Neotropical Birds Online: http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/overview?p_p_spp=487756