The Greater Antilleangrackle is a grackle found throughout the Greater Antilles as well as smaller, nearby islands. Like all Quiscalus grackles, it is a rather large, gregarious bird. It lives largely in heavily settled areas. It is also known as the 'kling-kling'.
Taxonomy
The Irish physician, naturalist and collector Hans Sloane stayed in Jamaica between 1687 and 1689. During his visit, he collected specimens and made notes on the plants and animals. Based on these notes, the ornithologist John Ray published a short description of the Greater Antillean grackle in 1713, using the Latin nameMonedula tota nigra but it was not until 1725, more than 35 years after his visit, that Sloane himself published a description of the grackle. He reported that it was common on the road between St. Jago de la Vega and Passage-Fort. In 1775 the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon described the Greater Antillean grackle in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial nameOriolus niger in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. Buffon's specimen was probably collected in the French colony of Saint-Domingue which occupied the western end of Haiti. In 1921 the American ornithologist James L. Peters restricted the type locality to Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The Greater Antillean grackle is now one of seven species placed in the genusQuiscalus, that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The genus name is from the specific nameGracula quiscula coined by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus for the common grackle; the specific niger is Latin for "black". There are seven subspecies, each restricted to one island or island group. They differ from the nominate subspecies in size, bill size, and colour tone.
Q. n. crassirostris – Swainson, 1838: found in Jamaica
Q. n. niger – : the nominate subspecies, found on Hispaniola
Q. n. brachypterus – Cassin, 1867: found in Puerto Rico
Description
The -long male is glossy black with a large rudder-like tail; the -long female has a smaller tail and is similar in color, but less glossy than the male. The eye is yellow and is the only non-black body part. The Greater Antillean grackle is a generalist eater; it eats fruits, bread, plant matter, and both small vertebrates and invertebrates alike.
