The yellow-bellied elaenia (Elaenia flavogaster) is a small bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Mexico, in every Central American country, in every mainland South American country except Chile, on Trinidad and Tobago, and on several islands in the Lesser Antilles.
Taxomomy and systematics
The yellow-bellied elaenia was formally described in 1822 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg under the binomial name Pipra flavogaster. The type locality is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The yellow-bellied elaenia is now one of 22 species placed in the genus Elaenia that was introduced in 1836 by Carl Jakob Sundevall. The specific epithet flavogaster combines the Latin flavus meaning "yellow" or "golden-yellow" with gaster meaning "belly".
Four subspecies are recognised:
E. f. subpagana Sclater, PL, 1860
E. f. pallididorsalis Aldrich, 1937
E. f. flavogaster (Thunberg, 1822)
E. f. semipagana Sclater, PL, 1862
In the mid twentieth century at least one author treated the yellow-bellied elaenia and the large elaenia (E. spectabilis) as conspecific.
