Habitat
Subtropical and tropical moist lowland and montane forest, subtropical and tropical dry shrubland and forest, dry savanna. From sea-level - 2,000 m.
Streak-backed Oriole (Icterus pustulatus) [XC499321]
by Richard E. Webster from Copala, Concordia, Sinaloa, Mexico (song)
Streak-backed Oriole (Icterus pustulatus) [XC499348]
by Richard E. Webster from Panuco Road, Sinaloa, Mexico (call, song)
Subspecies
DNA data indicate that present species is sister to Bullock's Oriole (Icterus bullockiorum). Subspecies often divided into three groups, "pustulatus group" (nominate subspecies and microstictus) in north of range, single-species "graysonii group" on Tres Marias Is (off west-central Mexico) and "sclateri group" (formosus, maximus, alticola, sclateri and pustuloides) in south of range. Groups sometimes thought to represent three distinct species, but mitochondrial-DNA divergence among mainland subspecies slight. On other hand, insular graysonii, isolated for longer time, may warrant treatment as a full species, but scant information available on its behaviour and breeding biology. In Mexico, birds from southern Sinaloa south to southern Nayarit sometimes placed in separate subspecies yaegeri, those from south-western Jalisco south to southern Guerrero in dickermani, and birds in interior central and southern Mexico in interior, but diagnostic characters of these uncertain.
Other proposed subspecies are flammulatus (described from Monte Redondo, in Honduras), subsumed in alticola, and connectens (interior El Salvador), which is intermediate between alticola and sclateri and is merged with latter.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
microstictus Griscom, 1934 - Western Mexico from Sonora and western Chihuahua south to Jalisco.
graysonii Cassin, 1867 - Tres Marías Is, off western coast of Mexico (Nayarit).
pustulatus (Wagler, 1829) - Southern Mexico from Colima south to Puebla, western Veracruz and northern Oaxaca.
formosus Lawrence, 1872 - Southern Mexico (southern Oaxaca and Chiapas) south to north-western Guatemala.
maximus Griscom, 1930 - R Negro valley, in north-central Guatemala.
alticola Miller, W & Griscom, 1925 - Guatemala and western Honduras.
sclateri Cassin, 1867 - Pacific coast from El Salvador south to north-western Costa Rica.
pustuloides van Rossem, 1927 - Volcán San Miguel, in east-central El Salvador.
yaegeri Phillips, AR, 1995 - Coastal lowlands of western Mexico (southern Sinaloa to southern Nayarit).
dickermani Phillips, AR, 1995 - Western Mexico (lowlands of south-western Jalisco and Colima to southern Guerrero).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet