Poospiza Explained

Poospiza is a genus of finch-like birds in the tanager family Thraupidae that are found in both the South American lowlands and the Andes mountains. Generally they are arboreal feeders in light woodland and scrub. All have extensive grey to their plumage, and have - often bold - white or rufous markings.^[1]

Taxonomy and species list

The genus Poospiza was introduced in 1847 by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis.^[2] The name combines the Ancient Greek poa meaning "grass" and spiza meaning "finch".^[3] The type species was designated as the black-and-rufous warbling finch by the English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1855.^{[4] [5]}

A molecular phylogenetic study of the Tanager family published in 2014 found that Poospiza and many other genera were polyphyletic.^[6] In the subsequent reorganization two species from Compsospiza and two species from Hemispingus were moved here. At the same time several species formerly assigned to Poospiza were moved to Microspingus, Poospizopsis and Castanozoster.^{[7] [8]}

The genus contains ten species:^[8]

Image	Common Name	Scientific name	Distribution
		Poospiza boliviana	Argentina and Bolivia
		Poospiza ornata	Argentina.
		Poospiza nigrorufa	Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
		Poospiza whitii	western Argentina and western Bolivia.
		Poospiza hispaniolensis	Ecuador and Peru.
		Poospiza rubecula	Peru.
		Poospiza baeri	western Argentina
		Poospiza garleppi	Bolivia.
		Poospiza goeringi	Venezuela.
		Poospiza rufosuperciliaris	Peru.

Sources

• Ridgely, R. S., & G. Tudor. 1989. The Birds of South America, vol. 1. Univ. Texas Press, Austin.

Notes and References

1. Ridgely & Tudor (1989) pp.453-460
2. Cabanis . Jean . Jean Cabanis . 1847 . Ornithologische notizen . German . Archiv für Naturgeschichte . 13 . 1 . 186–256, 308–352 [349] .
3. Book: Jobling, James A. . 2010. The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm . London . 978-1-4081-2501-4 . 314 .
4. Book: Gray, George Robert . George Robert Gray . 1855 . Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds Contained in the British Museum . 13 . London . British Museum . 75 .
5. Book: Paynter . Raymond A. Jr . 1970 . Check-List of Birds of the World . 13 . Museum of Comparative Zoology . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 117 .
6. Burns . K.J. . Shultz . A.J. . Title . P.O. . Mason . N.A. . Barker . F.K. . Klicka . J. . Lanyon . S.M. . Lovette . I.J. . 2014 . Phylogenetics and diversification of tanagers (Passeriformes: Thraupidae), the largest radiation of Neotropical songbirds . Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 75. 41–77 . 10.1016/j.ympev.2014.02.006 . 24583021 . 2014MolPE..75...41B .
7. Burns . K.J. . Unitt . P. . Mason . N.A. . 2016 . A genus-level classification of the family Thraupidae (Class Aves: Order Passeriformes) . Zootaxa . 4088 . 3 . 329–354 . 10.11646/zootaxa.4088.3.2 . 27394344 .
8. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . Rasmussen . Pamela . Pamela Rasmussen . July 2020 . Tanagers and allies . IOC World Bird List Version 10.2 . International Ornithologists' Union . 27 October 2020 .