The flame-rumped tanager (Ramphocelus flammigerus) is a passerine bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found from Panama to Peru. Its two subspecies have at times been treated as full species.
Taxonomy and systematics
The flame-rumped tanager was formally described in 1833 by the English naturalists William Jardine and Prideaux John Selby based on a specimen collected on "some part of the district upon the Columbia River". They assigned the binomial name Ramphopis flamigerus, whose specific epithet is a misspelling of the Latin word flammigerus meaning "flame-bearing" or "fiery". It is now one of eight species in the genus Ramphocelus that was introduced in 1805 by the French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest.
The flame-rumped tanager has two subspecies, the nominate R. f. flammigerus (Jardine, W & Selby, PJ, 1833) and R. f. icteronotus (Bonaparte, CLJL, 1838).
For much of the twentieth century subspecies R. f. icteronotus was treated as a separate species, the lemon-rumped tanager. A study published in 2017 found very little genetic differentiation. BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World lumped the two taxa in 2024. The Clements taxonomy followed suit in 2025 and AviList also adopted the lump that year in its initial version. The IOC adopted the lump in 2026.
Description
The flame-rumped tanager is about 18 cm (7 in) long; subspecies R. f. icteronotus weighs 29.6 to 35.6 g (1.0 to 1.3 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. Males of the nominate subspecies are almost entirely deep black. Their head is velvety with a plush appearance. Their lower back, rump, and undertail coverts are shiny flame-scarlet. Adult females have a blackish brown to brown head with sometimes some dusky and gray on the face. Their back is also blackish brown and usually has some mottling. Their rump and uppertail coverts are reddish orange. Their throat is dingy grayish yellow, their breast pale yellow with diffuse reddish orange...
