Citril Finch

About the Citril Finch

The citril finch (Carduelis citrinella), also known as the Alpine citril finch, is a small songbird, a member of the true finch family, Fringillidae. This bird is a resident breeder in the mountains of southwestern Europe from Spain to the Alps. Its northernmost breeding area is found in the Black Forest of southwestern Germany.

The citril finch was formally described by the German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in 1764 under the binomial name Fringilla citrinella. Long considered to be closely related to the European serin and the Cape canary, it was traditionally placed with them in the genus Serinus, until a genetic study in 2007 showed that, despite the plumage differences, it was more closely related to the European goldfinch; a second study in 2012 confirmed this, leading to its formal transfer to the genus Carduelis in 2013.

The Corsican finch (Carduelis corsicana) of Corsica and Sardinia was at one time considered as conspecific with the citril finch, but is now treated as a separate species. Carduelis is the Latin word for the European goldfinch, and the specific epithet citrinella is the Italian word for a small yellow bird, from a diminutive... Wikipedia →