Melopyrrha
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Melopyrrha is a genus of passerine birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is made up of four extant species endemic to the Greater Antilles, along with 1 possibly extinct species from the island of Saint Kitts in the Lesser Antilles.
.JPG)
| Melopyrrha | |
|---|---|
| |
| Cuban bullfinch (Melopyrrha nigra) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Thraupidae |
| Genus: | Melopyrrha Bonaparte, 1853 |
| Type species | |
| Loxia nigra Linnaeus, 1858 | |
Taxonomy
The genus Melopyrrha was introduced in 1853 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte.[1] The type species was later specified by George Robert Gray as the Cuban bullfinch.[2] The name combines the Ancient Greek melas meaning "black" with the genus Pyrrhula introduced by Mathurin Jacques Brisson for the bullfinches.[3] This genus was formerly monospecific containing only the Cuban bullfinch.[4] A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that the genus Loxigilla was polyphyletic and that the Greater Antillean bullfinch, Puerto Rican bullfinch and Cuban bullfinch formed a clade.[5] The three species were therefore placed together in Melopyrrha.[6] In 2021, the possibly extinct St. Kitts bullfinch (M. grandis) was split from M. portoricensis as a distinct species.[7]
Although these species were traditionally placed with the buntings and New World sparrows in the family Emberizidae,[4] molecular genetic studies have shown that they are members of the tanager family Thraupidae and belong to the subfamily Coerebinae that also contains Darwin's finches.[5]
Species
The five species in the genus are:[6]
| Image | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Puerto Rican bullfinch | Melopyrrha portoricensis | Puerto Rico. |
| St. Kitts bullfinch | Melopyrrha grandis | Saint Kitts. | |
.jpg) | Greater Antillean bullfinch | Melopyrrha violacea | Bahamas, Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as well as surrounding islands), Jamaica, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. |
| Grand Cayman bullfinch | Melopyrrha taylori | Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. | |
| Cuban bullfinch | Melopyrrha nigra | Cuba. |