Geospizopsis
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Geospizopsis is a genus of seed-eating birds in the tanager family Thraupidae that are commonly known as sierra finches.
| Geospizopsis | |
|---|---|
| |
| Plumbeous sierra finch (Geospizopsis unicolor) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Thraupidae |
| Genus: | Geospizopsis Bonaparte, 1856 |
| Type species | |
| Geospizopsis typus[1] = Passerculus geospizopsis Bonaparte, 1853 | |
| Species | |
|
See text | |
Taxonomy and species list
The two species now placed in Geospizopsis were formerly placed in the genus Phrygilus. A molecular phylogenetic study of the tanagers published in 2014 found that Phrygilus was polyphyletic.[2] In the subsequent rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, the genus Geospizopsis was resurrected.[3][4] It had originally been introduced in 1856 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte with Passerculus geospizopsis Bonaparte, 1853 as the type species.[5] This taxon is now treated as a subspecies of the plumbeous sierra finch and has the trinomial name Geospizopsis unicolor geospizopsis.[4] The genus name combines Geospiza, a genus introduced by John Gould in 1837, with the Ancient Greek opsis meaning "appearance".[6]
The two species in the genus are:[4]
| Male | Female | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .jpg) | Plumbeous sierra finch | Geospizopsis unicolor | Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. |
_(cropped).jpg) | Ash-breasted sierra finch | Geospizopsis plebejus | Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. | |
