Animalia Life
Melanotis hypoleucus
TAXONOMY
Melanotis hypoleucus Hartlaub, 1852, Guatemala.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: White-breasted blue mockingbird; French: Moqueur
bleu et blanc; German: Lazurspottdrossel; Spanish: Sinsonte
Matorralejo.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
10–11 in (25.5–28 cm); 2.1–2.3 oz (60–63 g). Upperparts deep
blue, underparts white apart from dark blue-gray flanks and
vent. Facial mask black. Eyes deep red, bill and legs black. Juvenile
dull blackish gray above and below with some white on
underparts.
DISTRIBUTION
Southern Mexico (Chiapas), highlands of Guatemala, southern
Honduras, northern El Salvador.
HABITAT
Open pine and oak woodland and scrub with dense understorey,
fairly humid at higher altitudes; at lower altitudes drier
scrubland. 3,300–9,800 ft (1,000–3,000 m).
BEHAVIOR
Shy and retiring, usually found in pairs or family parties feeding
on or near the ground. Song has a variety of repeated short
musical notes, or a medley of whistles and harsher notes.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Feeds mostly on the ground, sweeping leaf-litter aside with
sideways movements of the bill. Food omnivorous; invertebrates,
also berries.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Little known. Nest is a shallow untidy cup of coarse sticks,
lined with fibers, placed 3–15 ft (1–5 m) above ground in dense
thickets or saplings. Eggs light blue, unmarked, average two at
higher altitudes, three at lower altitudes. Incubation by female,
period not recorded; young fed by both parents, fledging period
14–15 days.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened. In suitable habitat quite common; susceptible
to habitat destruction and now very restricted in some parts of
range (e.g., El Salvador).
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.
Photo Gallery of - Blue-and-white mockingbird
