Spindalidae – Spindalises

Spindalis is a genus consisting of four non-migratory species of bird. It is the only genus in the family Spindalidae. The species are mostly endemic to the West Indies; exceptions include populations of western spindalises on Cozumel Island, off the Yucatán Peninsula’s east coast, and in extreme southeastern Florida. The species were traditionally considered aberrant members of the tanager family Thraupidae. Taxonomic studies reveal them to be a sister group to the Nesospingidae family (Puerto Rican Tanager) and some have grouped Spindalidae and Nesospingidae within the Phaenicophilidae.

The stripe-headed tanagers, or the spindalises, are a small group of four species of tanager-like fruit-eaters that are endemic to the Greater Antilles islands of the Caribbean. Three species occupy different islands in the Caribbean chain. Males in this family are clothed in fiery oranges and boldly patterned with black and white; not unusually, the females are far more muted in their plumage. All the species are similar in appearance, varying slightly in size and details of plumage, and they all give high sibilant calls. When they sing the notes get a little more emphatic and are delivered in an accelerating or decelerating trill.

Hispaniolan Spindalis Spindalis dominicensis – ©Dubi Shapiro

Western Spindalis is the most wide-ranging of the species in this family. It is found in the Bahamas, Cuba, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Mexico; this and other spindalises endemic to other Caribbean islands were recently split from the ‘Stripe-headed Tanager’.  Although it was formerly treated as a tanager, the relationship of the spindalises to other passerines is unclear and they were placed incertae sedis among the nine-primaried oscines, until it was recently agreed that they are a separate family of their own.

Western Spindalis Spindalis zena – ©Dubi Shapiro

Western Spindalis males have black and white striped heads and burnished orange breasts, with black or olive backs and black and white wings; females are quite a bit less colourful, being drab brown or olive with weakly streaked underparts. The nests are cup-shaped.

Jamaican Spindalis Spindalis nigricephala – ©Dubi Shapiro

The genus Spindalis was introduced in 1837 by the naturalists William Jardine and Prideaux John Selby to accommodate a single species, Spindalis bilineatus. This name is now considered a junior synonym of Tanagra nigricephala Jameson, (1835) the Jamaican Spindalis, which becomes the type species by monotypy.