The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a small, North American songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is the state bird of both Maine and Massachusetts in the United States, and the provincial bird of New Brunswick in Canada. It is notable for its capacity to lower its body temperature during cold winter nights, its good spatial memory to relocate the caches where it stores food, and its boldness near humans (they ...
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The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a small, North American songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is the state bird of both Maine and Massachusetts in the United States, and the provincial bird of New Brunswick in Canada. It is notable for its capacity to lower its body temperature during cold winter nights, its good spatial memory to relocate the caches where it stores food, and its boldness near humans (they can feed from the hand).
Though often placed in the genus Parus with most other tits, mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data and morphology suggest that separating Poecile more adequately expresses these birds' relationships. The American Ornithologists' Union has treated Poecile as a distinct genus for some time.
The genus name Poecile has often been treated as feminine (giving the species name ending atricapilla); however, this was not specified by the original genus author Johann Jakob Kaup, and under the ICZN the genus name must therefore be...
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