The Hispaniolan palm crow (Corvus palmarum) is a relatively small corvidendemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (inHaiti and the Dominican Republic) where it was formerly very frequent, but is now reduced in population.
Despite being sympatric with the white-necked crow (Corvus leucognaphalus) on Hispaniola, it appears to be more closely related to the fish crow (C. ossifragus) of the East Coast of the United States, as well as two smaller species, the Tamaulipas crow (C. imparatus) and Sinaloan crow (C. sinaloae) of Mexico, than the white-necked crow, which is more related to the Cuban crow (Corvus nasicus) and the Jamaican crow (Corvus jamaicensis), the other two Caribbean corvids. This indicates two distinct arrivals of crows onto the island (with the ancestor of the two palm crows being a later arrival), and a resulting niche differentiation, similar to C. nasicus and C. minutusonCuba.
The following cladogram is based on phylogenetic study of the Corvidae by Knud Jønsson and collaborators that was published in 2012.[6]
The local name for the palm crow is cao in the Dominican Republic (where it is locally common, mainly in mountain pine forests and also around the area of Lake Enriquillo), which is onomatopoeic of the simple and repetitive call of this bird.
