''Phrygilus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of mainly Andean seed-eating tanagers commonly known as sierra finches. Phrygilos means finch in

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 pe ...

. Traditionally classified in the bunting and American sparrow family Emberizidae, more recent studies have shown them to belong in the Thraupidae.

Taxonomy and species list

The genus ''Phrygilus'' was introduced in 1844 by the German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 1 ...

with the

grey-hooded sierra finch The grey-hooded sierra finch (''Phrygilus gayi'') is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is found in Argentina and Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the s ...

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 specim ...

. The name is from the

''phrugilos'', an unidentified bird mentioned by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his ...

. The genus formerly included additional species. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that the genus was highly

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

and in the resulting reorganization members of the genus were moved to ''

Geospizopsis ''Geospizopsis'' is a genus of seed-eating birds in the tanager family Thraupidae that are commonly known as sierra finches. Taxonomy and species list The two species now placed in ''Geospizopsis'' were formerly placed in the genus ''Phrygilus'' ...

'', '' Rhopospina'', '' Porphyrospiza'' and '' Idiopsar''. The genus now contains four species.

References

Bird genera {{Thraupidae-stub