A Revision of the Tufted Flycatchers of the Genus Mitrephanes

Abstract

ONE of the most attractive birds of Mexican forests is the tawny little crested pewee, Mitrephanes phaeocercus, commonly called the Tufted Flycatcher. When I gathered material for a study of variation in the Mexican forms, I also compared all additional specimens of the genus I could borrow. Altogether I assembled 728 specimens, including all the proposed forms and series from every country and Mexican state the bird has been reported from except Ecuador. The genus name Mitrephanes was a substitute by Coues (1882) for Mitrephorus Sclater, 1859, preoccupied. Apparently no one has questioned the validity or limits of the genus, for the small, weak feet and tarsi, pycnaspidean (Ridgway, 1907: 346 calls it quasi-pycnaspidean or quasiholospidean) tarsal envelopes, and pointed crest make a unique combination. Ridgway (1907) recognized five species, although he was able to examine only two. Hellmayr (1927) lumped the entire genus in a single species, as did Zimmer (1930; 1938a) in the most thorough revision thus far. Griscom (1932) restated the specificity of M. berlepschi, and Sutton and Burleigh (1940), while they did not discuss the South American forms, distinguished M. aurantiiventris (of southern Central America) as a species separate from M. phaeocercus. It should be noted that Zimmer had only 76 specimens altogether and Sutton and Burleigh only 38 from north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.