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Snowy cotinga

species of bird

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 18, 2025
Entity authorityQ902008
Source-derived summary

The snowy cotinga (Carpodectes nitidus) is a medium-sized species of passerine bird in the family Cotingidae. It is found in Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.

Taxonomy and systematics

The snowy cotinga shares genus Carpodectes with the yellow-billed cotinga (C. antoniae) and the black-tipped cotinga (C. hopkei). One early twentieth century author treated them as conspecific but they have been otherwise treated as separate species. The three form a superspecies. The snowy cotinga is monotypic.

Description

The snowy cotinga is 19.5 to 21 cm (7.7 to 8.3 in) long and weighs an average of 105 g (3.7 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males are mostly white with a light bluish gray crown and a very light bluish gray wash on their upperparts and wings. Their flight feathers are wide and have rounded tips.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Snowy cotinga” is species of bird. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Snowy, cotinga and species, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 135-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Snowy, cotinga and species is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “species of bird” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q902008. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.

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  • Current terminology
  • Classification context
  • Finding cited technical literature
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Primary datasets, specimen catalogues, standards bodies and the most recent peer-reviewed literature.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Snowy cotinga”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Snowy cotinga primary sources, Snowy cotinga archive and Snowy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Snowy cotinga”?
  2. Is the terminology current, historical or disputed?
  3. Which observation, specimen, dataset or publication supports the account?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Snowy cotinga” 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.