Hooded mountain tanager



The hooded mountain tanager (Buthraupis montana) is a species of bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is the only member of the genus Buthraupis. This yellow, blue and black tanager is found in forest, woodland and shrub in the Andean highlands of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. At 23 cm and 85 g, it is one of the largest tanagers (second in weight only to the white-capped tanager).

Taxonomy
The hooded mountain tanager was formally described in 1837 by the French naturalists Alcide d'Orbigny and Frédéric de Lafresnaye from a specimen collected in the Bolivian Yungas. They coined the binomial name Aglaia montana.

It is now the only species placed in the genus Buthraupis that was introduced in 1851 by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis.

The genus name combines the Ancient Greek bou- meaning "huge" and thraupis an unknown small bird but used by ornithologists to signify a tanager. The specific name is from the Latin montanus  meaning "of the mountains".

Six subspecies are recognised:
 * Buthraupis montana venezuelana Aveledo & Perez, 1989 – northwest Venezuela
 * Buthraupis montana gigas (Bonaparte, 1851) – north Colombia
 * Buthraupis montana cucullata (Jardine & Selby, 1842) – west, central Colombia to Ecuador
 * Buthraupis montana cyanonota Berlepsch & Stolzmann, 1896 – north, central Peru
 * Buthraupis montana saturata Berlepsch & Stolzmann, 1906 – southeast Peru
 * Buthraupis montana montana (d'Orbigny & Lafresnaye, 1837) – west Bolivia