Ash-breasted Sierra-Finch

About the Ash-breasted Sierra-Finch

The ash-breasted sierra finch (Geospizopsis plebejus) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland, and subtropical or tropical high-altitude grassland.

The ash-breasted sierra finch was formally described by the Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi in 1844 as Phrygilus plebejus. Tschudi did not give a type locality in his description, but the Austrian ornithologist Carl Hellmayr contended in 1938 that the type specimens were probably collected from the Junín highlands of Peru. The subspecies ocularis was described by P. L. Sclater in 1859 based on specimens collected from Cuenca, Ecuador. Sclater initially described ocularis as a distinct species, but it was subsequently lumped as a subspecies of plebejus. naroskyi was described in 1983 by Manuel Nores and Dario Yzurieta based on an adult male collected from Pampa de Achala in the Sierras de Córdoba of Argentina.

The generic name Geospizopsis is derived from the name of the genus Geospiza, meaning 'ground finch' in Ancient Greek, and the Greek... Wikipedia →