Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Open encyclopedia reference

The ruby-crowned kinglet (Corthylio calendula) is a very small passerine bird found throughout North America. It is a member of the kinglet family. The bird has olive-green plumage with two white wing bars and a white eye-ring. Males have a red crown patch, which is often concealed. The sexes are identical apart from the crown, and juveniles are similar in plumage to adult females. It is one of the smallest songbirds in North America. The ruby-crowned kinglet is not closely related to other kinglets and was moved from Regulus to its own genus, Corthylio, in 2021. Three subspecies are currently recognized. The kinglet is mostly migratory, and its range extends from northwest Canada and Alaska south to Mexico. Its breeding habitat is spruce-fir forests in the northern and mountainous regions of the United States and Canada. The ruby-crowned kinglet builds a cup-shaped nest, which may be pensile or placed on a tree branch and is often hidden. It lays up to 12 eggs, and has the largest clutch of any North American passerine for its size.

Wikipedia contributors, Ruby-crowned kinglet; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T07:44:49.336462+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Corthylio calendula (Linnaeus, 1766)

Name authority

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Common name

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Regulidae

Genus

Corthylio

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyRegulidae Vigors, 1825
11. genusCorthylio Cabanis, 1853
12. speciesCorthylio calendula (Linnaeus, 1766)

Close classified relatives

No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.

Browse 5 records assigned to Regulidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=1245072 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:CQ6F3. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.