The cinereous finch (''Piezorina cinerea'') is a species of South American bird in the tanager family

Thraupidae The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12% of the Neotropica ...

. It is the only member of the genus ''Piezorina''. It is found in arid coastal regions of northern Peru, with a single record, presumably a straying bird, from immediately adjacent Ecuador.

Taxonomy

The cinereous finch was formally described in 1843 by the French ornithologist

Frédéric de Lafresnaye Baron Nöel Frédéric Armand André de Lafresnaye (24 July 1783 – 14 July 1861) was a French ornithologist and collector. Lafresnaye was born into an aristocratic family at Chateau de La Fresnaye in Falaise, Calvados, Falaise, Normandy. He ...

under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Guiraca cinerea''. In the same publication he proposed a new

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Piezorina'' with the cinereous finch as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. Lafresnaye believed that his specimen had come from the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

, but it does not occur there and in 1930 the American ornithologist

Outram Bangs Outram Bangs (January 12, 1863 – September 22, 1932) was an American zoologist. Biography Bangs was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, as the second son of Edward and Annie Outram (Hodgkinson) Bangs. He studied at Harvard from 1880 to 1884, and be ...

amended the type location to northwest Peru. The genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''piezō'' meaning "to crush" with ''rhinos'' meaning "nose". The specific epithet ''cinerea'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and means "ash-grey" or "ash-coloured". The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

: no

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

are recognised. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study of the

tanager The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12% of the Neotropica ...

s published in 2014 found that the cinereous finch was a member of the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Poospizinae and was closely related to the slender-billed finch (''Xenospingus concolor'').

References

External links

Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the cinereous finch
cinereous finch Birds of Peru Birds of the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena cinereous finch cinereous finch {{Thraupidae-stub