Certhia cyanea Linnaeus, 1766 The red-legged honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus) is a small songbird species in the tanager family (Thraupidae).

It is found in the tropical New World from southern Mexico south to Peru, Bolivia and central Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, and on Cuba, where possibly introduced.

[2] The red-legged honeycreeper was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Certhia cyanea.

[3][4] Linnaeus based his description on "The Black and Blue Creeper" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the English naturalist George Edwards from a specimen collected in Suriname.

[8] Eleven subspecies are recognised:[7] The red-legged honeycreeper is on average 12.2 cm (4.8 in) long, weighs 14 g (0.49 oz) and has a medium-long black, slightly decurved, bill.

[12] It responds readily to the (easily imitated) call of the ferruginous pygmy owl (Glaucidium brasilianum).

[13][14] A specimen studied in the Parque Nacional de La Macarena of Colombia was found to be free of blood parasites.