| Natural history
http://oikos.villanova.edu/mimodes/
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The Socorro MockingbirdNatural History |
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| The Socorro Mockingbird was originally described as Mimodes graysoni after it was discovered by Andrew Grayson in 1870. For many years, it was generally described by the common name Socorro Thrasher. By the 1980s, ornithologists had concluded that the species was quite different in behavior, plumage, and skeletal features, from thrashers; consequently, it came to be called the Socorro Mockingbird, with no change in the scientific name. In 2005, the species was renamed by the AOU Check-list Committee (Banks et al. 2005) as Mimus graysoni, based mainly on molecular phylogenetic analysis (Barber et al. 2004) showing that the Socorro species is more closely related to the Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) and the Tropical Mockingbird (Mimus gilvus) than to other species of mockingbird (Mimus spp.). Banks, R. C., C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, A. W. Kratter, P. C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., J. D. Rising, and D. F. Stotz. 2005. Forty-sixth supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. Auk 122:1026-1031 The conclusions of the molecular analyses are consistent with previous inferences based on the spotting pattern of the eggs (Martínez-Gómez and Curry 1995): the eggs of the Socorro Mockingbird (shown below) are bluish green with grown spots, exactly like the eggs of the other mockingbird species mentioned above. Another closely related species is the Bahama Mockingbird, Mimus gundlachii (Arbogast et al. 2006). The Galápagos mockingbirds (in the sub-genus Nesomimus) are also closely related.
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