On the habitat occupancy of some neotropical jays in South America, genus Cyanocorax

Abstract

In this study, the habitat occupancy by ten jay species of genus Cyanocorax is evaluated taking into account the morphometric measurements of the species. Five measurements were gotten from 247 museums specimens: total length, wing, tail, bill, and tarsus. Canonical analyzes of the gotten measurements revealed the existence of two distinct groups among the analyzed jays. A group is composed by species with proportionally long wings, which tends to occupy open habitats, as grassland, cerrado and, pantanal: C. violaceus, C. cyanomelas, C. caeruleus, and C. cristatellus. Another group is composed by species with proportionally long tails and that inhabits forest or scrub habitats, as the Atlantic and Amazonian forests and the caatinga: C. affinis, C. mystacalis, C. cayanus, C. heilprini, C. chrysops and C. cyanopogon. Data from literature suggests that the species follow those occupancy tendencies even when they are sympatric in one locality.