A New Hybrid Bunting (Passerina cyanea × Passerina ciris)

Abstract

FOUR buntings of the genus Passerina breed in the United States: Indigo (P. cyanea), Lazuli (P. amoena), Varied (P. versicolor), and Painted (P. ciris). Adult males differ greatly in color; the male Painted Bunting is the most colorful and perhaps the gaudiest of all native North American passerines. In contrast, adult female Indigo, Lazuli, and Varied Buntings are brownish in coloration and closely similar. The distinct yellow-green female Painted is quite unlike any other native North American bird in color (Robbins et al. 1966). Breeding ranges broadly overlap between the Indigo and Lazuli, the Varied and Painted, and the Indigo and Painted; breeding ranges of the Lazuli and Varied and of the Varied and Indigo barely meet. For some time it has been known that the very closely related Indigo and Lazuli buntings hybridize in the Great Plains, but interbreeding is not random (Sibley and Short 1959, Short 1969). Mayr and Short (1970) consider these two buntings as species comprising a superspecies, but Phillips (in Phillips et al. 1964) considers these buntings conspecific. One record of hybridization between the Painted and Varied buntings is known (Storer 1961). Storer believes the Painted and Varied buntings are probably less closely related than are the Indigo and Lazuli buntings. As the ranges of the Painted and Varied buntings overlap broadly and only one hybrid is known, apparently their distant relationship makes hybridi-zation rare. Short (pets. comm.) believes that the Varied Bunting is more closely related to the Indigo and Lazuli than is the Painted Bun-ting. Despite the closer relationship of Varied and Indigo buntings, which have not hybridized in the wild, the vastly greater range overlap of In-digo and Painted buntings makes the likelihood of even their rare hybridi-zation greater than between the former two (Short, pers. comm., see Mayr and Short 1970). 485 The Auk 91: 485-487. July 1974