Volatinia jacarina
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The blue-black grassquit (Volatinia jacarina) is a small Neotropical bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found in Mexico, every Central American country, every mainland South American country, in Trinidad and Tobago, and in Grenada.
The blue-black grassquit was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tanagra jacarina. Linnaeus based his description on the "Jacarni" that was described in 1648 by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae. The type locality is eastern Brazil. The specific epithet jacarina is derived from the Tupi language and was used for a type of finch. The blue-black grassquit is now the only species in the genus Volatinia that was introduced in 1850 by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach. The genus name is a diminutive of the Latin volatus meaning "flying".
Within the tanager family Thraupidae the blue-black grassquit is in the subfamily Tachyphoninae and is a member of a clade that contains the genera Conothraupis and Creurgops. It was formerly placed with the buntings in the... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 2 | Lima | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 3 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 5 | Natal | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Campinas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Brasilia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Cali | 🇨🇴 Colombia |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Basel Zoo | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | |
| 2 | Burgers' Ocean | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 3 | Royal Burgers' Zoo | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 4 | Zoo Lagos | 🇵🇹 Portugal | |
| 5 | Butterfly World | 🇺🇸 United States |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-black Grassquit sighting in Carara National Park on a given day, based on 871 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 149th most-seen of the 414 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-black Grassquit in Carara National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April and October–February, the lowest months. That is one of Carara National Park's wettest months, with about 590 mm of rain against 35 mm in February.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue-black Grassquit sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
19th of 73
Of the 73 parks where we can rate Blue-black Grassquit sightings, Carara National Park ranks 19th at about 10%. The best odds are in Emas National Park (Brazil, about 70%), Serra da Canastra National Park (Brazil, about 50%) and Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park (Honduras, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Thraupidae
The closest relatives of the Blue-black Grassquit that you can see in Carara National Park (family Thraupidae, Tanagers and Allies) are Blue-gray Tanager (about 40%), Red-legged Honeycreeper (about 30%) and Scarlet-rumped Tanager (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue-black Grassquit is recorded against all the birds logged in Carara National Park (871 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
