Chestnut-bellied seed finch
Species of bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The chestnut-bellied seed finch (Sporophila angolensis) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae, but was until recently placed in Emberizidae.
| Chestnut-bellied seed finch | |
|---|---|
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| Male | |
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| Female | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Thraupidae |
| Genus: | Sporophila |
| Species: | S. angolensis |
| Binomial name | |
| Sporophila angolensis (Linnaeus, 1766) | |
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| Synonyms | |
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| Audio | |
| Song of chestnut-bellied seed finch | |
It is found widely in shrubby and grassy areas in tropical and subtropical South America. It has been replaced west of the Andes (and in Central America) by the closely related thick-billed seed finch (S. funerea). The two have often been considered conspecific as the lesser seed-finch, using the older scientific name Oryzoborus angolensis.
Taxonomy
The chestnut-bellied seed finch was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Loxia angolensis.[2] Linnaeus based his description on "The Black Gros-Beak" that had been described and illustrated in 1764 by the English naturalist George Edwards.[3] Edwards's illustration was from a live bird belonging to the barrister Philip Carteret Webb. Edwards mistakenly believed that the bird had come from Angola. The chestnut-bellied seed finch does not occur there and the type locality is now designated as eastern Brazil.[3][4]
The chestnut-bellied seed finch and the thick-billed seed finch were formerly considered conspecific and together had the English name "lesser seed-finch".[5][6] Both species were formerly placed in the genus Oryzoborus but molecular phylogenetic studies found that Oryzoborus was embedded in Sporophila.[7][8] The chestnut-bellied seed finch was therefore moved to Sporophila, a genus that had been introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1844.[9][10]
Two subspecies are recognised:[10]
- Sporophila angolensis torrida (Scopoli, 1769) – Trinidad, Tobago, east Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and north, west Amazonia
- Sporophila angolensis angolensis (Linnaeus, 1766) – north Bolivia to east Brazil, Paraguay and northeast Argentina
