Cocos Finch

About the Cocos Finch

The Cocos finch (Pinaroloxias inornata) or Cocos Island finch, is the only one of Darwin's finches not native to the Galápagos Islands, and the only member of the genus Pinaroloxias. Sometimes classified in the family Emberizidae, more recent studies have shown it to belong in the tanager family, Thraupidae. It is endemic to Cocos Island, a Pacific island which is approximately 360 miles (580 km) south of Costa Rica.

The Cocos finch was formally described in 1843 by the English ornithologist John Gould under the binomial name Cactornis inornatus. The species was moved to a new genus Pinaroloxias by Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1885. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pinaros meaning "dirty" or "squalid" with Loxia, a genus introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the crossbills. The specific epithet inornata is Latin for "plain" or "unadorned". The Cocos finch is a member of a group collectively known as Darwin's finches. Although traditionally placed with the buntings and New World sparrows in the family Emberizidae, molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that Darwin's finches are members of the subfamily Coerebinae within the tanager family Thraupidae. The Cocos... Wikipedia →