Puerto Rican Pewees Are Unassuming Puerto Rico Five-One Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican pewees avail themselves as avian candidates for Puerto Rico Five-One icons if House bill P.R. 4901 actualizes commonwealth statehood.

(lower) illustration of Lesser Antillean pewee (Contopus latirostris), subsequently recognized as three subspecies (Antillean, Puerto Rican and Saint Lucia pewees), under description's synonym Myiobius latirostris, by French engraver and painter Jean-Baptiste Huet (Oct. 15, 1745-Aug. 27, 1811), for description by French ornithologist Jules Pierre Verreaux (Aug. 24, 1807-Sept. 7, 1873); J.P. Verreaux, Nouvelles Archives du Museum D'Histoire Naturelle de Paris Bulletin, tome deuxième (1866), planche III fig. 2: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Puerto Rican pewees appear only on their namesake island and therefore among avian candidates as Puerto Rico Five-One icons, if House bill P.R. 4901 acquires Congressional, presidential and Puerto Rican referendum approval.

Jenniffer González-Colón, island non-voting congressional representative, brings to First-Session members of the 116th Congress the Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act, with bipartisan support and 45 co-sponsors. It calls for a federal government-authorized, island-wide referendum Nov. 3, 2020, and, with that referendum's majority approval by island voters, presidentially proclaimed statehood within 30 months. Fifty-first statehoodship diminishes United States territories by one, down to 15, even as it draws in with other island-only wildlife insect-devouring, seed-dispersing, unassuming Puerto Rican pewees.

Caterpillar cocoons, lichen fibers and spider webs exteriorize down, feather, fiber, grass, hair-lined bud-scale, catkin, dead-leaf, flower-head, grass-head, shredded-bark, weed-stem elaborated nests of Puerto Rican pewees.

Spider webs fix the cup-shaped nests of Puerto Rican pewees to horizontal branches or level forks at perhaps 8 to 75-foot (2.44 to 22.86-meter) above-ground heights.

Female Puerto Rican pewees get their two brown-red-spotted, cream-yellow eggs from March through June breeding seasons incubated within 14 days and nestlings independent within 18 days. Dull olive-bodied young with dull buff wingbars, unlike cinnamon-buff, double, narrow-banded parents, hone different-winged (Heteroptera), membrane-winged (Hymenoptera), same-winged (Homoptera), sheath-winged (Coleoptera) and two-winged (Diptera) order-filled diets. Contopus latirostris blancoi (from Greek κοντός, "short" and πούς. "foot"; Latin lātus, "wide" and rōstris, "beak"; Francisco Manuel Blanco (Nov. 24, 1778-April 1, 1845) is day-active.

Six-inch (15.24-centimeter-) long Puerto Rican pewees perhaps juggle eastern wood-pewee-like 9.06 to 10.24-inch (23 to 26-centimeter-) long wingspans and 0.35 to 0.67-ounce (10 to 19-gram) weights.

The Puerto Rico Five-One icon knows brown-olive upper-parts and sides; black-brown tails and wings; and, unlike cinnamon-brown-red Saint Lucian and pale Lesser Antillean pewees, buff undersides.

Puerto Rican pewees look sooty black-olive in their crowns; slight-crested; dusky black-brown in maxilla ("upper jaw") and feet; and dusky-tipped white in their mandibles ("lower jaws"). The Tyrannidae (from Latin tyrannus, "tyrant" and Greek -ειδής, "-like") tyrant flycatcher family member manifests brown irises; broad, dark, flat beaks; and black-brown lower, brown-white upper-legs. Puerto Rican pewees, locally nicknamed Contopus portoricensis ("short-footed Puerto Rican") scientifically, net direct, rapid, steady, wing-beat, rapid-maneuver flights; near-ground hovers; and quivering wings on open perches.

Puerto Rican pewees observe 3.5-year life cycles on total biogeographical occurrences of 51,737.69 square miles (134,000 square kilometers) up through 2,952.76-foot (900-meter) altitudes above sea level.

Puerto Rican pewees proliferate in coffee plantations on wooded hills; and in subtropical to tropical coastal mangroves, dry forests and wet lowland, montane and upland forests.

The Puerto Rican pewee subspecies, quested scientifically by Jean Cabanis (March 8, 1816-Feb. 20, 1906, queues up in dry-wooded, semiarid-wooded, wet-wooded habitat niches on Puerto Rico. The Saint Lucia pewee nominate species, ranked scientifically by Jules Verreaux (Aug. 24, 1807-Sept. 7, 1873), requires similarly dry, semiarid, wet woody niches on Saint Lucia. The Lesser Antillean pewee subspecies, studied scientifically by George Lawrence (Oct. 20, 1806-Jan. 17, 1895), survives in same-climate, same-biogeography habitat niches on Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Puerto Rican pewees, as bobitos ("dear little fools"), pibíes puertorriqueños and Puerto Rico Five-One icons, perhaps transmit "yes" referendum votes in their peee-ooooo peetpeetpeetpeetpeet whistled trills.

The Puerto Rican pewee (Contopus latirostris blancoi) is known locally as bobito; photo by Jessenia Marrero Negron: SOPI @Aves_PuertoRico, via Twitter March 6, 2016

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

(lower) illustration of Lesser Antillean pewee (Contopus latirostris), subsequently recognized as three subspecies (Antillean, Puerto Rican and Saint Lucia pewees), under description's synonym Myiobius latirostris, by French engraver and painter Jean-Baptiste Huet (Oct. 15, 1745-Aug. 27, 1811), for description by French ornithologist Jules Pierre Verreaux (Aug. 24, 1807-Sept. 7, 1873); J.P. Verreaux, Nouvelles Archives du Museum D'Histoire Naturelle de Paris Bulletin, tome deuxième (1866), planche III fig. 2: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13956131

The Puerto Rican pewee (Contopus latirostris blancoi) is known locally as bobito; photo by Jessenia Marrero Negron: SOPI @Aves_PuertoRico, via Twitter March 6, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/Aves_PuertoRico/status/706509526644580354

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