The Inca jay (Cyanocorax yncas) is a bird species of the New World jays, which is native to the Andes of South America. It is widely known as querrequerre in Spanish, an onomatopoeic name derived from the bird's call.
Taxonomy
The Inca jay was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1775 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Corvus yncas in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. Buffon's specimen came from Peru; in 1953 the American ornithologist John Todd Zimmer restricted the type location to Chilpes, Department of Junín. The Inca jay is now one of 17 species placed in the genus Cyanocorax that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1826. The name of the genus is from Ancient Greek kuanos "dark-blue" and korakos "raven". The specific epithet yncas is from the Incas, the inhabitants of Peru in pre-Columbian America.
Five subspecies are accepted:
C. y. galeatus (Ridgway, 1900) – Found in western Colombia. Similar to C. y. yncas but with a larger crest.
C. y. cyanodorsalis Dubois, AJC, 1874 – East of the Andes in Colombia and northwest Venezuela. Smaller that C. y. geleatus but with a dark blue crest, white stripe on the forehead, blue crown and neck, dark green back, and darker legs.
C. y. guatimalensis (Bonaparte, 1850) – Found in mountainous region in northern Venezuela. Similar to C. y. cyandorsalis, but with shorter crest, less blue overall, and thinner white stripe on forehead. Brownish legs and irises.
C. y. yncas (Boddaert, 1783) – Found in southwestern Colombia to eastern Ecuador and Peru, into central...
