Mourning sierra finch | |
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Male mourning sierra finch | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Passeriformes |
Family: | Thraupidae |
Genus: | Rhopospina Cabanis, 1851 |
Species: | R. fruticeti
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Binomial name | |
Rhopospina fruticeti (Kittlitz, 1833)
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Synonyms | |
Fringilla fruticeti (protonym) |
The mourning sierra finch (Rhopospina fruticeti) is a species of South American bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is the only member of the genus Rhopospina.
It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. It is a vagrant to the Falkland Islands and Brazil. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland.
The mourning sierra finch was formally described and illustrated in 1883 by the German naturalist Heinrich von Kittlitz under the binomial name Fringilla fruticeti.[2] This species was formerly included in the genus Phrygilus.[3] A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Phrygilus was polyphyletic,[4] 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.[5][6] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek rhōps meaning "bush" with spina meaning "finch". The specific epithet is from the Latin fruticetum meaning "thicket".[7]
Three subspecies are recognised:[6]