Hispaniolan palm crow

The Hispaniolan palm crow (Corvus palmarum) is a relatively small corvid endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Taxonomy and systematics

The Hispaniolan palm crow was originally described in 1835 by the German naturalist Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg with the binomial Corvus palmarum. At the time it included what is now the Cuban palm crow (Corvus minutus); the taxon was called the palm crow. Most taxonomic systems eventually followed a 1997 publication in recognizing the Hispaniolan and Cuban palm crows as separate monotypic species. However, as of late 2025, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) retains the "palm crow" as a single species with two subspecies.

Despite the Hispaniolan palm crow being sympatric with the white-necked crow (Corvus leucognaphalus) on Hispaniola, it appears to be more closely related to the fish crow (C. ossifragus) of the East Coast of the United States and as two smaller species, the Tamaulipas crow (C. imparatus) and Sinaloan crow (C. sinaloae) of Mexico, than to the white-necked crow. The white-necked is more closely related to the Cuban crow (C. nasicus) and the Jamaican crow (C. jamaicensis), the other two Caribbean corvids. This indicates two distinct arrivals of crows onto the island (with the ancestor of the two palm crows being a later arrival), and a resulting niche differentiation, similar to that of C. nasicus and C. minutus on Cuba.

The following cladogram is based on phylogenetic study of the Corvidae by Knud Jønsson and collaborators that was published in 2012.

Distribution and habitat

The Hispaniolan palm crow is found in several areas in Haiti and the western half of the Dominican Republic. It primarily inhabits pine forest in the island's mountains but also occurs in evergreen forest in the lowlands of Haiti and in dry to humid deciduous forest in both countries. In elevation it ranges from sea level to but is most common between . It is considered common in its range.

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