Tangara mexicana
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The turquoise tanager (Tangara mexicana) is a medium-sized passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is a resident bird from Trinidad, much of Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, and south to Bolivia. Despite its scientific name, it is not found in Mexico. It is restricted to areas with humid forest, with its primary distribution being the Amazon. It was formerly treated as being conspecific with the white-bellied tanager which is found in the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil.
It occurs in forest, woodland, and cultivation. The bulky cup nest is built in a tree or shrub, and the female incubates three brown-blotched grey-green eggs. These are social birds usually found in groups. They eat a wide variety of fruit and also take insects and other arthropods, often gleaned from twigs.
The turquoise tanager was formally described in 1766 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the 12th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tanagra mexicana. His description was principally based on Mathurin Jacques Brisson's Le tangara blue de Cayenne that he had described and illustrated in 1760. The type locality is Cayenne in French Guiana. The turquoise tanager... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Serra dos Órgãos National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Manu National Park | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 3 | Amacayacu National Natural Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 4 | Yasuní National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 5 | Sierra de la Macarena National Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 6 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 7 | Anavilhanas National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Brownsberg Nature Park | 🇸🇷 Suriname |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | National Zoological Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Basel Zoo | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | |
| 4 | California Academy of Sciences | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Zoo Miami | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Milwaukee County Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Nuremberg Zoo | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 8 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 28 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 9 | Burgers' Ocean | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 10 | Royal Burgers' Zoo | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 11 | Memphis Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 12 | Riverbanks Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 13 | Eindhoven Zoo | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 14 | Zoologischer Garten Halle | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 15 | OdySea Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 16 | National Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 17 | Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 18 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 12 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 19 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 14 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 20 | Tiergarten Am Tiergarten 6 in Nürnberg | 🇩🇪 Germany |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Turquoise Tanager sighting in Manu National Park on a given day, based on 817 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 75th most-seen of the 641 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July and August
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Turquoise Tanager in Manu National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April and October–January, the lowest months. Those are among Manu National Park's driest months, with about 65 mm of rain a month against 290 mm in February.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Turquoise Tanager sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 8 parks where we can rate Turquoise Tanager sightings, Manu National Park ranks 2nd at about 20%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Serra dos Órgãos National Park (Brazil, about 20%).
Same genus: Tangara
The closest relatives of the Turquoise Tanager that you can see in Manu National Park (genus Tangara, Tangara Tanagers) are Paradise Tanager (about 20%) and Green-and-gold Tanager (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Turquoise Tanager is recorded against all the birds logged in Manu National Park (817 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.
