Volatinia jacarina
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
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 |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-black Grassquit sighting in Parque Natural Metropolitano on a given day, based on 125 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 140th most-seen of the 328 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July and September
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-black Grassquit in Parque Natural Metropolitano on a given day, against under 5% in August and October–June, the lowest months. Those are among Parque Natural Metropolitano's wettest months, with about 330 mm of rain a month against 15 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.
50th of 73
Of the 73 parks where we can rate Blue-black Grassquit sightings, Parque Natural Metropolitano ranks 50th at under 5%. 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 Parque Natural Metropolitano (family Thraupidae, Tanagers and Allies) are Blue-gray Tanager (about 70%), Crimson-backed Tanager (about 60%) and Palm Tanager (about 50%), 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 Parque Natural Metropolitano (125 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.
