Painted Redstart - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

When he first described the species in 1829, naturalist William John Swainson assigned it to the genus Setophaga — the same genus as that of the American Redstart — where it remained for nearly a century and a half, though one naturalist placed it in the Old World flycatcher genus Muscicapa during that time. By the mid 1960's, researchers recommended that it be moved to its current genus, Myioborus, based on various similarities with the other whitestarts. There are two subspecies, which differ only slightly in appearance:

• M. p. pictus is found from Arizona and New Mexico in the southern United States to Oaxaca and Veracruz in Mexico. Birds in the northern part of the range tend to migrate to the southern parts of the subspecies' range for the winter.
• M. p. guatemalae, which is found from Chiapas in southern Mexico to northern Nicaragua, has little or no white edging on the tertials and less white on the fourth rectrix of the tail. It is non-migratory.