Bay-headed Tanager (Tangara gyrola) [XC99579]
by Leonardo Ord\u00f3\u00f1ez-Delgado from La Mesa, Pinas, El Oro Province., Ecuador (call)
Bay-headed Tanager (Tangara gyrola) [XC449148]
by William Adsett from Reserva Natural La Isla Escondida, Orito, Putumayo, Colombia (call)
Subspecies
Forms a superspecies with Rufous-winged Tanager (Tangara lavinia). Replaced by latter in wet Choco-Pacific lowlands. Subspecies probably constitute more than a single species. Morphological differences between some subspecies as great as those between present species and Rufous-winged Tanager (Tangara lavinia). Subspecies appear to form three plumage groups: "albertinae group" (including bangsi, deleticia, nupera, catharinae and parva), with blue underparts; "viridissima group" (including toddi), with green underparts; and monotypic "gyrola group", with mixed underparts. These have in the past been treated as three separate species. Name "gyroloides", dating to 1847, was in the past applied variously to birds of subspecies deleticia, albertinae or catherinae. However, it is a replacement name for the preoccupied "Aglaia Peruviana", which is itself unidentifiable due to contradictory features in the description.
The following 9 subspecies are recognised:
bangsi (Hellmayr, 1911) - Eastern Nicaragua, Costa Rica and western Panama (east to Panamá).
deleticia (Bangs, 1908) - Eastern Panama (Darién) and generally in western Colombia (east to western slope of eastern Andes, south to Patía Valley, in Nariño).
nupera Bangs, 1917 - South-western Colombia (Nariño south of Patía Valley), western Ecuador and north-western Peru (Tumbes).
toddi Bangs & Penard, TE, 1921 - Northern Colombia (Sierra de Santa Marta, Sierra de Perijá, and eastern slope of eastern Andes in Norte de Santander and northern Boyacá) and mountains of western and northern Venezuela (east to Miranda).
viridissima (Lafresnaye, 1847) - Mountains of north-eastern Venezuela and Trinidad.
catharinae (Hellmayr, 1911) - Eastern base of eastern Andes of Colombia (from Meta and Macarena Mts) south to eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru and Bolivia (south to Cochabamba and western Santa Cruz).
parva Zimmer, JT, 1943 - Southern Venezuela (south-western Amazonas), adjacent eastern Colombia, and mountains of adjacent northern Brazil (upper R Negro).
gyrola (Linnaeus, 1758) - Southern Venezuela (from northern Amazonas and north-western Bolívar) eastern across the Guianas and extreme northern Brazil (headwaters of R Uraricoera east to central and southern Amapá).
albertinae (Pelzeln, 1877) - North-eastern Peru (Loreto) and Brazil south of R Amazon (from R Purús east to north-eastern Pará and south to northern Mato Grosso).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet