Purple Finch

About the Purple Finch

The purple finch (Haemorhous purpureus) is a bird in the finch family, Fringillidae. It breeds in the northern United States, southern Canada, and the west coast of North America. The purple finch was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the finches in the genus Fringilla and coined the binomial name Fringilla purpurea. Gmelin specified the locality as Carolina. Gmelin based his account on the "purple finch" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The purple finch is now one of three finches placed in the genus Haemorhous that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William Swainson.

Two subspecies are recognised: H. p. purpureus (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – central south, southeast Canada and northeast USA H. p. californicus (Baird, SF, 1858) – southwest Canada and west USA This species and the other "American rosefinches" were formerly included with the rosefinches of Eurasia in the genus Carpodacus; however, the three North... Wikipedia →