Black-collared Jay

The black-collared jay (Cyanolyca armillata) is a species of bird in the family Corvidae, the crows and jays. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. == Taxonomy and systematics == The black-collared jay was originally described in 1845 as Cyanocorax armillatus. It and several other species were later moved to their current genus Cyanolyca. The black-collared jay and the turquoise jay (Cyanolyca turcosa) were for a time treated as subspecies of the white-collared jay (C. viridicyanus) but they were separated beginning in the 1950s. The black-collared jay's further taxonomy is unsettled. The IOC, AviList, and the Clements taxonomy assign it these three subspecies: C. a. armillata (Gray, 1845) C. a. meridana Sclater & Salvin, 1876 C. a. quindiuna Sclater & Salvin, 1876 However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) treats quindiuna as a separate species, the Quindio jay, and retains the English name "black-collared jay" for the other two subspecies. Clements does recognize the taxon within the species as the "black-collared jay (Quindio)". At least one nineteenth centur author called the taxon Xanthura quindiuna. This article follows the one-species, three-subspecies model. == Description == The black-collared jay is 30 to 32 cm (12 to 13…