Dacnis cayana
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The blue dacnis or turquoise honeycreeper (Dacnis cayana) is a small passerine bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found in Central America from Honduras to Panama, on Trinidad, and in every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay.
In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue dacnis in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in "Cayenne" (French Guiana). He used the French name Le Pepit bleu de Cayenne and the Latin name Sylvia cayanensis caerulea. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the blue dacnis. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial Motacilla cayana and cited Brisson's work. The specific epithet cayana is from Cayenne. This species is now placed in the genus Dacnis that was introduced in 1816 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier with the... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | João Pessoa | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Belo Horizonte | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Rio de Janeiro | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Santos | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | Maceió | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Brasilia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Vitória | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California Academy of Sciences | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Chester Zoo | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 3 | Philadelphia Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory | 🇺🇸 United States |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Dacnis sighting in Iguazú National Park on a given day, based on 1,897 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 27th most-seen of the 343 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April to June
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Dacnis in Iguazú National Park on a given day, against about 20% in December, the lowest month.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue Dacnis sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 44
Of the 44 parks where we can rate Blue Dacnis sightings, Iguazú National Park ranks 6th at about 40%. The best odds are in Serra dos Órgãos National Park (Brazil, about 60%), Chapada Diamantina National Park (Brazil, about 50%) and Itatiaia National Park (Brazil, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Thraupidae
The closest relatives of the Blue Dacnis that you can see in Iguazú National Park (family Thraupidae, Tanagers and Allies) are Sayaca Tanager (about 40%), Saffron Finch (about 30%) and Black-goggled Tanager (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue Dacnis is recorded against all the birds logged in Iguazú National Park (1,897 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.
