Black-vented Oriole

The black-vented oriole is 20.5 to 23 cm (8.1 to 9.1 in) long. Males weigh an average of about 41 g (1.4 oz) and females an average of 39 g (1.4 oz). Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a black head, throat, upper breast, mantle, back, rump, uppertail coverts, and tail. Their lowermost belly and undertail coverts are also black. Their wing is mostly black with orange-yellow lesser and median coverts that show as an epaulet on the closed wing. Their underparts have a tinge of chestnut just below the black breast and are otherwise orange-yellow. Adult females are duller overall than males and generally more yellow than orange-yellow to the undertail coverts. Subspecies I. w. castaneopectus has more chestnut below the black breast but is otherwise like the nominate. Both sexes of both subspecies have a brown iris, a black bill with a bluish gray base to the mandible, and bluish gray legs and feet. Juveniles are duller than adults with an olive-buff crown and upperparts, some yellow on the face, and buff tips on the median and greater upperwing coverts.

The black-vented oriole has a disjunct distribution. Subspecies I. w. castaneopectus is the more northerly of the two. It is found in Sonora, Sinaloa, and western Chihuahua in northwestern Mexico. The nominate subspecies is found from Durango, Coahuila and Nuevo León in north-central Mexico south through central Guatemala, the northern tip of El Salvador, and southern Honduras into western Nicaragua. However, the nominate's range has a gap at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. The species has also wandered to Arizona and Texas in the U. S. The black-vented oriole inhabits dry scrublands, pine-oak forest, semi-deciduous and deciduous forest, and gallery forest in the upper tropical and lower temperate zones. Sources differ on its elevational range. One says it is 100 to 2,500 m (330 to 8,200 ft) and two others 500 to 2,500 m (1,600 to 8,200 ft). A third places it between 500 and 2,200 m (1,600 and 7,200 ft) south of Mexico.

The black-vented oriole feeds on insects, other arthropods, fruit, and nectar. It forages in pairs and family groups. It forages in the forest's mid- to upper levels.