biology

Golden-crowned kinglet

Golden-crowned kinglet is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Golden-crowned kinglet rather than just read about it. In short: The golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa) is a very small songbird in the family Regulidae that lives throughout much of North America. Description Adults are olive-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, thin bills and short tails.

Key takeaways

Golden-crowned kinglet belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Golden-crowned kinglet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Golden-crowned kinglet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa) is a very small songbird in the family Regulidae that lives throughout much of North America.

Description

Adults are olive-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, thin bills and short tails. They have white wing bars, a black stripe through the eyes and a yellow crown surrounded by black. The adult male has an orange patch in the middle of the yellow crown. The juvenile is similar to the adult, but with a browner back and without the yellow crown. This is one of the smallest passerines in North America. Its length, at 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in), is probably the shortest of any American passerine. Its weight, averaging 6.1 g (0.22 oz) for females and 6.3 g (0.22 oz) for males and ranging from 4.5 to 7.8 g (0.16 to 0.28 oz), is similar to the American bushtit and black-tailed gnatcatcher. The golden-crowned kinglet has a wingspan of 5.5–7.1 in (14–18 cm).

Ecology The golden-crowned kinglet is insectivorous, foraging in trees or shrubs, where it eats insects (especially caterpillars), insect eggs and spiders. It produces a series of high-pitched calls on a single note, and tends not to fear human approach. Its nest is a well-concealed hanging cup suspended from a conifer branch. Golden-crowned kinglets may form tight huddles when overwintering.

Distribution

The golden-crowned kinglet is a widespread migratory bird throughout North America. Its breeding habitat is coniferous forests across Canada, the northeastern and western United States, Mexico and Central America. It migrates to the United States in the non-breeding season. Some birds are permanent residents in coastal regions and in the southern parts of their range. Northern birds remain further north in winter than the ruby-crowned kinglet.

Taxonomy

The kinglets are a small group of birds sometimes included in the Old World warblers, but frequently given family status, especially as recent research showed that, despite superficial similarities, the crests are taxonomically remote from the warblers. The names of the family, Regulidae, and the genus, Regulus, are derived from the Latin regulus, a diminutive of rex, "a king", and refer to the characteristic orange or yellow crests of adult kinglets. There are three migratory subspecies in the United States and Canada, differing in size, bill length, back and rump colors, wing bar width and color, and length of supercilium:

R. s. apache, breeding and wintering from southern Alaska and the southern Yukon to southwestern California and southern New Mexico. This subspecies is medium-small, has a long bill, and has the back and rump bright yellowish-olive. R. s. olivaceus, breeding from coastal southeastern Alaska to southwestern Oregon, wintering to Idaho and southwestern California. This subspecies is small, with a medium-long bill, and has the back and rump dark greenish-olive. R. s. satrapa, breeding from northern Alberta to Newfoundland and North Carolina. This subspecies is large, with a short bill, has the back and rump olive with a greyish wash. It differs from apache and olivaceus in two other regards: the white supercilium stops short of the rear of the crown, whereas on the other two species the supercilium extends further back, and the wingbars are wide, and white (or slightly lemon-tinged) compared with narrow dingy whitish (or lemon- or olive-washed) wingbars of the other two subspecies. The subspecies "amoenus" has been synonymised with apache, as the distinctions between these populations are obscured by individual variation. Two other (non-migratory) subspecies occur south of the bird's core range, although these are weakly differentiated from each other and so are perhaps best synonymised:

R. s. aztecus in south-central Mexico, in the mountains from Michoacán south to Oaxaca. This subspecies is dark greenish above, has poorly developed wing markings, and its underparts are washed greyish-brown. R. s. clarus in the mountains of Chiapas, southern Mexico, and Guatemala. This subspecies resembles aztecus, but is paler and duller, with a shorter tail. Hybridization with ruby-crowned kinglets has been reported to have possibly occurred.

References

External links

Golden-crowned Kinglet Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology Golden-crowned Kinglet – Regulus satrapa – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter "Golden-crowned Kinglet media". Internet Bird Collection. Golden-crowned Kinglet photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University) Interactive range map of Regulus satrapa at IUCN Red List

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Golden-crowned kinglet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Golden-crowned kinglet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Golden-crowned kinglet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Golden-crowned kinglet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Golden-crowned kinglet

In research: Golden-crowned kinglet appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Golden-crowned kinglet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Golden-crowned kinglet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Birds described in 1823, Birds of Central America, Birds of North America, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Golden-crowned kinglet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Golden-crowned kinglet” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Golden-crowned kinglet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Golden-crowned kinglet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Golden-crowned kinglet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Golden-crowned kinglet in simple terms?

The golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa) is a very small songbird in the family Regulidae that lives throughout much of North America. Description Adults are olive-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, thin bills and short tails.

Why does Golden-crowned kinglet matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Golden-crowned kinglet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Golden-crowned kinglet.