Moustached Brush-Finch

About the Moustached Brush-Finch

The moustached brushfinch (Atlapetes albofrenatus) is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae. It is found in northern Colombia, where its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forest and heavily degraded former forest.

The moustached brushfinch was first formally described in 1940 by the French ornithologist Auguste Boissonneau. He named it Tanagra (arremon) albo-frenatus, considering it to be part of the Tanager family. A study of the mitochondrial DNA gene sequences for the family Passerellidae indicated that the moustached brushfinch is most closely related to the ochre-breasted brushfinch, found in Colombia and Venezuela, and the Santa Marta brushfinch, endemic to Colombia.

Two subspecies are recognised: A. a. albofrenatus (Boissonneau, A, 1840) – eastern Andes of Colombia (Norte de Santander to Cundinamarca) A. a. meridae (Sclater, PL & Salvin, O, 1871) – Andes of western Venezuela (Táchira and Mérida)

The subspecies A. a. meridae has sometimes been treated as a separate species, the Merida brushfinch, but both taxa have variable plumage and there is no published genetic data. Like most Atlapetes species... Wikipedia →