Scarlet Tanager

• biologíaThe males turn from a deep summer red to a greenish plumage like the female's after the post-breeding moult, which hides them better on migration.
• The male changes completely twice a year: scarlet and black in spring, olive green in autumn, so much so that on migration moulting birds have a bewildering blotchy look.
• It is one of the few birds that eats hairy caterpillars and wasps, prey most birds avoid: it rubs them against the branch to remove the stinging hairs or the sting before swallowing them.
• It depends on mature, unbroken deciduous woodland: in small fragments its nests are heavily parasitised by the brown-headed cowbird and breeding success collapses.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Mature deciduous oak woodland of eastern North America; winters in the Andes and Amazonia

Sexual maturity

12 months

Gestation / incubation

13 days

Litter / clutch size

4

Sources consulted: https://www.iucnredlist.org/ | https://animaldiversity.org/ | https://es.wikipedia.org/

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.