The firefinches form a genus, Lagonosticta, of small seed-eating African birds in the family Estrildidae.
The genus was introduced by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis in 1851.[1] The type species was subsequently designated as the African firefinch.[2] The name combines the Ancient Greek words lagōn "flank" and stiktos "spotted".[3] The genus Lagonosticta is sister to the brown twinspot which is placed in its own genus Clytospiza.[4]
The genus contains 10 species:[5]
| Image | Common Name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lagonosticta senegala | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Gambia, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia | ||
| Lagonosticta rubricata | Senegal east to Ethiopia then south to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania south through Mozambique to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. | ||
| Lagonosticta rhodopareia | Angola, Botswana, Chad, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe | ||
| Lagonosticta virata | Western Africa | ||
| Lagonosticta sanguinodorsalis | central Nigeria | ||
| Lagonosticta umbrinodorsalis | southwest Chad where it is fairly common and northeast Cameroon | ||
| Black-bellied firefinch | Lagonosticta rara | Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo and Uganda | |
| Lagonosticta rufopicta | Gambia and southern Senegal east to western Uganda and eastern Kenya | ||
| Lagonosticta nitidula | Angola, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, southern Tanzania and northern areas of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe | ||
| Lagonosticta larvata | Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Uganda | ||