Cindy Marple

When is a tanager not a tanager? When it’s a cardinal!

DNA analysis of bird species over the past 20 or so years has shed new light on relationships between species. The “old” way of grouping species by appearance and behavior has been upended by this new research. Species previously thought to be related are not, and vice versa. Taxonomists have been busily re-grouping species and families to align with the new information.

This is how we’ve ended up with no members of the Tanager family (Thraupidae) in the US and Canada. The brightly colored birds we call Tanagers- Western, Summer, Scarlet- are more closely related to Cardinals than to the colorful tanagers of the tropics. So now they’re officially part of the Cardinalidae family. I’m glad they didn’t change the name, Western Cardinal just doesn’t fit!

Besides our familiar Northern Cardinal, there are a handful of other birds named Cardinals, all found in South America. Two of those species from Brazil were introduced in Hawaii. Fittingly enough, this group of Cardinals aren’t Cardinals, they are – you guessed it- Tanagers!