Mourning Sierra-Finch

About the Mourning Sierra-Finch

The mourning sierra finch (Rhopospina fruticeti) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae, the tanagers and allies. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru and has been recorded as a vagrant to Brazil and the Falkland Islands.

The mourning sierra finch was formally described and illustrated in 1833 by the German naturalist Heinrich von Kittlitz with the binomial Fringilla fruticeti. The species was later reassigned to the genus Phrygilus. Both the genera Fringilla and Phrygilus were in the finch family Fringillidae but multiple studies published in the early 2000s showed that Phrygilus belonged in the tanager family Thraupidae. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Phrygilus was polyphyletic, and in the subsequent rearrangement, the mourning sierra finch was moved to the resurrected genus Rhopospina that had been introduced in 1851 by Jean Cabanis. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek rhōps meaning "bush" with spina meaning "finch". The specific epithet is from the Latin fruticetum meaning "thicket".

The mourning sierra finch has these three subspecies: R. f. peruviana (Zimmer, JT, 1924) R. f. coracina (Sclater... Wikipedia →