Puerto Rican Todies, Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican todies arguably are Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One icons, available only in Puerto Rico and most active from February to May.

Puerto Rican tody (Todus mexicanus), illustrated by American ornithologist and illustrator Louis Agassiz Fuertes (Feb. 7, 1874-Aug. 22, 1927): Public Domain, via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Digital Library

April 2019 allows an acquaintance with Puerto Rican todies, available all the way from February through May only in the Commonwealth and therefore potential Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One icons.

All April 2019 belongs to Earth Month 2019 even though just one day, April 22, this year broaches behaving better in both built and natural environments. Earth Day 2019 and Earth Month 2019 convoke diverse, healthy cultivated and wild trees since chemicals, clear-cutting, collecting and cruelty compromise flowering, fruiting, leafing, seeding habitats. Puerto Rican todies dwell in habitats diminished by agro-industrialists, loggers, monocultural plantation operators and owners and village farmers dividing karst, rainforest, scrub, streamside habitats among themselves.

Puerto Rican todies endemic to their namesake Commonwealth emerge most audibly and visibly during Earth Month 2019 and the Puerto Rico Five-One statehood bill's Congressional examination.

The months from February through May furnish the 10- to 13-year life cycles of Puerto Rican todies with annual breeding seasons on their Caribbean insular mainlands.

Physically and sexually mature female Puerto Rican todies each gestate one one- to four-egg seasonal clutch for a ground nest gotten together with their seasonal mates. They hone between September and June 10.59- to 12.01-inch- (26.9- to 30.5-centimeter-) long tunnels with 4.45-inch- (11.3-centimeter-) long, 3.86-inch- (9.8-centimeter-) wide, 0.35-inch- (6.9-centimeter-) high nest chambers. Pink-tinged, shiny, vermilion-yolked, white, 0.05-ounce (1.43-gram), 0.63- by 0.53-inch (16.0- by 13.5-centimeter) eggs, laid one-by-one nightly, incubate 21 to 22 days before hatching for 19-plus-day nesting.

Some Puerto Rican todies journey as altricial (helpless, from Latin altrix, "nourisher"), blind, deaf newborns while Congress judges Puerto Rico Five-One statehood during Earth Month 2019.

Puerto Rican todies know flocked life cycles foraging canopies and hopping through grassy or wooded grounds; paired breeding and parenting; and solitary flying, perching and roosting.

Male Puerto Rican todies locate nestlings' aphids, beetles, cicadas, Clusia clusioides fruits, leafhoppers and moths and mates' beetles, crickets, dragonflies, earwigs, flies, grasshoppers, katydids and spiders. Todies manifest silence as brown-eyed, naked newborns; clucks as brown-eyed, downy, three-day-olds; and nasal, serialized bee-beeps as adult-colored, brown-eyed fledgelings with gray-striped chests without red markings. Puerto Rican todies, named Todus mexicanus (from Latin todus, "small bird" and, despite non-occurrence, mexicānus, "Mexican"), nestle into burrows 32.81 feet (10 meters) from last season's.

Puerto Rican todies, observed by René Lesson (March 20, 1794-April 28, 1849), organize breeding, parenting and roosting within 1.73- to 4.94-acre (0.7- to 2-hectare) home ranges.

Puerto Rican todies possess blue-backed heads; red-marked lower bills, chins and throats; emerald upper-sides; white undersides; yellow flanks and tail-covert undersides; and brown legs and feet.

Gray-eyed males and white-eyed females queue up respectively higher- and lower-ranging, mature, 0.17- to 0.28-ounce (4.8- to 7.8-gram), 3.93- to 4.53-inch (10- to 11.5-centimeter) head-body-tail lengths. Agro-industrialists and hunters reduce 3,822.41-square-mile (9,900-square-kilometer) homelands with autograph (Clusia), coffee (Psychotria), fig (Ficus), goosefoot (Chenopodium), prickly-ash (Zanthoxylum) and rose (Rubus) Puerto Rican tody host trees. The International Union for Conservation of Nature serves no endangered, threatened or vulnerable statuses despite full-sun plantations subduing shaded spaces that once sheltered Puerto Rican todies.

Earth month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood touch Puerto Rican todies, san pedritos des mes de la teirra 2019 y de Puerto Rico estado 51.

Puerto Rican tody (Todus mexicanus), known locally as San Pedrito; Aibonito, central south Puerto Rico; photo by Dylan Ávila: Aves de Puerto Rico @avesdepuertoricoFelPe, via Facebook Aug. 14, 2017

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Puerto Rican tody (Todus mexicanus), illustrated by American ornithologist and illustrator Louis Agassiz Fuertes (Feb. 7, 1874-Aug. 22, 1927): Public Domain, via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/28150/rec/84

Puerto Rican tody (Todus mexicanus), known locally as San Pedrito; Aibonito, central south Puerto Rico; photo by Dylan Ávila: Aves de Puerto Rico @avesdepuertoricoFelPe, via Facebook Aug. 14, 2017, @ https://www.facebook.com/avesdepuertoricoFelPe/photos/a.10154144170085190/10156298393065190/

For further information:

Aves de Puerto Rico @avesdepuertoricoFelPe. 14 August 2017. "Aves de Puerto Rico added a new photo to the album: Aves: Dylan Ávila (Tierra Viva). San Pedrito Puerto Rican Tody Todus mexicanus Aibonito, P.R. El San Pedrito lleva por error el nombre científico Todus mexicanus. La intención de su inscriptor René P. Lesson fue llamarlo Todus portoricensis. Si deseas que ese error sea corregido te invitamos a firmar y compartir esta petición. http://www.peticiones.org/corregir-el-nombre-cientifico-del… — en Puerto Rico." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/avesdepuertoricoFelPe/photos/a.10154144170085190/10156298393065190/

Baicich, Paul J.; and Colin J.O. Harrison. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Princeton NJ; and Oxford, England, UK: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides. Second edition.

Baicich, Paul J.; and Colin J.O. Harrison. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Princeton NJ; and Oxford, England, UK: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides. Second edition.

Cuevas, Víctor M. "Puerto Rican Tody." United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service > El Yunque National Forest > Learning Center > Nature & Science.
Available @ https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/elyunque/learning/nature-science/?cid=fsbdev3_042875

Fremgen, A. 2018. "Puerto Rican Tody (Todus mexicanus), version 2.0." Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca NY: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Available @ https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/purtod1/overview

Kepler, Angela Kay. "Puerto Rican Tody Todus mexicanus." In: Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf, editors. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 10, Birds III: 29. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Marriner, Derdriu. 20 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Nightjars: Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/puerto-rican-nightjars-earth-month-2019.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Screech-Owls Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/puerto-rican-screech-owls-earth-month.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 7 April 2019. "Earth Month, Puerto Rican Green Mango Hummingbirds and Sea Hibiscus." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/earth-month-puerto-rican-green-mango.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 31 March 2019. "Puerto Rican Emerald Hummingbirds and Puerto Rican Statehood." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/03/puerto-rican-emerald-hummingbirds-and.html

Vuilleumier, François, editor-in-chief; and Paul Sweet, consultant. 2016. American Museum of Natural History Birds of North America. Revised edition. New York NY: DK Publishing.

Wetmore, Alexander. 31 December 1919. "Description of a Whippoorwill from Porto Rico." Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, vol. 32: 235-238.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3335191