See text The Cuban warblers are a genus, Teretistris, and family, Teretistridae, of birds endemic to Cuba and its surrounding cays.
The genus Teretistris was long thought to sit in the New World warbler family Parulidae, until a 2002 study examined 25 genera of New World warbler using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA found that six genera were best placed outside the family, including Teretistris.
[2] Five of the genera had long been suspected to not sit comfortably inside Parulidae, but before this study there had never been a suggestion that Teretistris did not belong in the New World warbler family.
[1] A follow-up study published in 2013 supported the separation of the genus from Parulidae but found it difficult to resolve exactly where it sat with the other nine-primaried songbirds.
[4][5][6][7] The 2013 Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World took a different approach, however, and placed the two Cuban warblers with the wrenthrush in the family Zeledoniidae.
[11] The Cuban warblers are, as their name suggests, endemic to Cuba and its surrounding islands and cays.
[10] Both species of Cuban warbler inhabit a range of natural forest with good understory and drier scrubbier habitat, from sea-level up into the mountains of Cuba.
[11][12] The Oriente warbler is more likely to live in scrub nearer the coasts, and humid forests higher in hills and mountains.
[11][12] The nest of the Oriente warbler is a simple unlined cup constructed of small vines, roots, moss and feathers.
[10] The nest of the yellow-headed warbler is also a cup, made of similar materials and grass, placed close to the ground in low vegetation.