Red-breasted Chat Granatellus venustus Scientific name definitions

The Red-breasted Chat (Granatellus venustus) is a bird endemic to the thorn and tropical dry forests in the Pacific slope of western Mexico. Here it is frequent to common, at least locally, and possibly moves to different habitats outside the breeding season. This chat is sexually dimorphic, with males displaying a broad, white supercilium, a white throat surrounded by a black chest band and face, and red that expands from the chest to the abdomen, but is limited by white sides and flanks. Females are buffy overall but show hints of the male's plumage pattern. Both have a long tail with white patches on the outer rectrices that are flashed about. There is also an insular subspecies, G. v. francescae, restricted to the Islas Tres Marias, that is larger with a longer tail, is paler overall, and the males lack the black breast band.

The Red-breasted Chat is part of a superspecies formed by the other two, allopatric, members of its genus: the Gray-throated Chat (G. sallaei) of southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, and the Rose-breasted Chat (G. pelzelni) of Amazonia. This group has prooved to be taxonomically confusing, until recently placed in Parulidae but currently classified under the Cardinalidae.