Stats

Lifespan: 5-10 yrs
Size: Small
Diet: Omnivore
Activity: Diurnal
Social: Pair
Biome: Temperate woodland
Range: Western North America
Movement: Flight
Breeding: Egg-laying
Defense: Camouflage
Status: Common

About

A stocky western North American songbird with a burnt-orange body, black-and-white wings, and a massive conical bill. It is one of the few birds able to safely eat toxic monarch butterflies, digesting the cardenolide-laced insects that poison most other predators.

Life cycle

1.
egg
A small clutch of speckled eggs is incubated in a cup nest, turned and kept warm by the parent.
2.
hatchling
A pink, blind hatchling is fed by its parents in the nest, gaping its bill at every visit.
3.
juvenile
A feathered juvenile fledges from the nest, learning to fly and to forage close to its parents.
4.
adult
Fully grown with adult plumage and song.

Learn more

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Cardinalidae
Genus: Pheucticus
Species: Pheucticus melanocephalus