Yellow-faced Grassquit

About the Yellow-faced Grassquit

The yellow-faced grassquit (Tiaris olivaceus) is a passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae and is the only member of the genus Tiaris. It is native to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow-faced grassquit in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). He used the French name Le bruant de S. Domingue and the Latin name Emberiza dominicensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the yellow-faced grassquit. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Emberiza olivacea and cited Brisson's work. The specific name olivaceus is Neo-Latin for "olive-green". This is now the only species placed in the genus Tiaris that was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827. The genus formerly contained... Wikipedia →