The Greater Antillean bullfinch (''Melopyrrha violacea'') is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae.

Distribution and habitat

It is found in the Bahamas,

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

(the Dominican Republic and

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

, as well as surrounding islands), Jamaica, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Its natural habitats are

subtropical or tropical dry forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

, subtropical or tropical moist montane forest, subtropical or tropical dry

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

, and heavily degraded former forest.

Taxonomy

The Greater Antillean bullfinch was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

'' 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 ...

''Loxia violacea''. The specific epithet ''violacea'' is from Latin ''violaceus'' meaning "violet-coloured". Linnaeus based his description on "The Purple Gross-beak" that had been described and illustrated by Mark Catesby in 1731. The

type locality Type locality may refer to: * Type locality (biology) * Type locality (geology) See also * Local (disambiguation) * Locality (disambiguation) {{disambiguation ...

is the Bahamas. This species was formerly placed in the genus ''

Loxigilla ''Loxigilla'' is a genus of passerine birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. The two species are both endemic to the Lesser Antilles. Taxonomy The genus ''Loxigilla'' was introduced in 1831 by the French naturalist René Lesson. The type sp ...

''. 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 published in 2014 found that ''Loxigilla'' was polyphyletic and in the subsequent rearrangement the Greater Antillean bullfinch and the Puerto Rican bullfinch were moved to ''

Melopyrrha ''Melopyrrha'' is a genus of passerine birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is made up of four extant species endemic to the Greater Antilles, along with 1 possibly extinct species from the island of Saint Kitts in the Lesser Antilles ...

''.

Subspecies

Five subspecies are recognised: * ''M. v. violacea'' (Linnaeus, 1758) – north, central Bahamas * ''M. v. ofella'' (Buden, 1986) – central, east Turks and Caicos Islands, south Bahamas * ''M. v. maurella'' (Alexander Wetmore, Wetmore, 1929) – Tortuga (Haiti), Tortue Island (off northwest Hispaniola) * ''M. v. affinis'' (Robert Ridgway, Ridgway, 1898) – Hispaniola and surrounding islands * ''M. v. ruficollis'' (Johann Friedrich Gmelin, Gmelin, JF, 1789) – Jamaica

Distribution and habitat

Taxonomy

Subspecies

References

Further reading