The bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is a species of passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. Before the development of molecular genetics in the 21st century, its relationship to other species was uncertain, and it was placed with the buntings and New World sparrows in the family Emberizidae, with New World warblers in the family Parulidae, or its own monotypic family, Coerebidae. This small, active nectarivore is found in warmer parts of the Americas and is generally common.
Its name derives from its yellow color and the English word quit, which refers to small passerines of tropical America; cf. grassquit, orangequit.
Taxonomy
Carl Linnaeus formally described the bananaquit in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Certhia flaveola. He based his description on the "black and yellow bird" described by John Ray and Hans Sloane, and the "Black and Yellow Creeper" described and illustrated by George Edwards in 1751. The bananaquit was reclassified as the only member of the genus Coereba by Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1809. The genus name is of uncertain origin but may be from a Tupi name Güirá for a small black and yellow bird. The specific epithet flaveolus is a diminutive of the Latin flavus meaning "golden" or "yellow".
Before the development of techniques to sequence DNA, the relationship of the bananaquit to other species was uncertain. It was variously placed with the New World warblers in the family Parulidae, with the buntings and New World sparrows in the family Emberizidae, or in its own monotypic family, Coerebidae. Based on the results of molecular phylogenetic studies, the bananaquit is now placed in the tanager family Thraupidae and belongs with Darwin's finches to the subfamily Coerebinae.
It is still unclear whether any of the island subspecies should be elevated to species, but phylogenetic studies have revealed three clades: the nominate group from Jamaica, Hispaniola, and the Cayman Islands, the bahamensis group from the...
