Cuban warbler

See text The Cuban warblers are a genus, Teretistris, and family, Teretistridae, of birds endemic to Cuba and its surrounding cays.

Until 2002 they were thought to be New World warblers, but DNA studies have shown that they are not closely related to that family.

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.

[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.

Oriente warbler (above), and yellow-headed warbler (below); illustration by Keulemans , 1885
The forehead and crown of the Oriente warbler is grey, as opposed to the entirely yellow head of the yellow-headed warbler.