Fan-tailed warbler
species of bird

The fan-tailed warbler (Basileuterus lachrymosus) is a species of bird in the family Parulidae, the New World warblers. It is found from Mexico to Nicaragua. It has also been recorded as a vagrant in the U. S. states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Its "habit of constant tail-fanning and tail-swinging [is] distinctive".
Taxonomy and systematics
The fan-tailed warbler has a complicated taxonomic history that as of July 2026 has not been resolved. Its formally description in 1850 with the binomial Sylvia lachrymosus is credited to Charles Lucien Bonaparte. However, Bonaparte appended "(Basileuterus? lachrymosus, Cabanis)" to the binomial. Cabanis had not published the name and so is not credited with the description despite the species' later assignment to his genus. In 1850 Cabanis had also erected genus Euthlypis, and in 1902 Robert Ridgway assigned the fan-tailed warbler to it, retroactively declaring it the type species of the genus.
“Fan-tailed warbler” enters the record as species of bird. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fan-tailed, warbler and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Fan-tailed warbler” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fan-tailed, warbler and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27075999. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2026, 1850 and 1902.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fan-tailed warbler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.