''Serinus'' is a
genus of small birds in the
finch family Fringillidae found in Europe and Africa. The birds usually have some yellow in their plumage. The genus was introduced in 1816 by the German naturalist
Carl Ludwig Koch
Carl Ludwig Koch (21 September 1778 – 23 August 1857) was a German entomologist and arachnologist. He was responsible for classifying a great number of spiders, including the Brazilian whiteknee tarantula and common house spider. He was bo ...
. Its name is
New Latin for "canary-yellow".
Many species were at one time assigned to the genus but it became clear from
phylogenetic studies of
mitochondrial
A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is use ...
and nuclear DNA sequences that the genus was
polyphyletic. This was confirmed by Dario Zuccon and coworkers in a comprehensive study of the finch family published in 2012. The authors suggested splitting the genus into two
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
groups, a proposal that was accepted by the
International Ornithologists' Union. The genus ''Serinus'' was restricted to the
European serin
The European serin, or simply the serin (''Serinus serinus''), is the smallest European species of the family of finches (Fringillidae) and is closely related to the Atlantic canary. Its diet consists mainly of a combination of buds and seeds.
...
and seven other species while a larger
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
from Africa and Arabia was assigned to the resurrected genus ''
Crithagra''.
The genus contains eight species:
[
]
References
External links
Serin videos, photos and sounds
on the Internet Bird Collection
{{Taxonbar, from=Q827170
Fringillidae
Bird genera
Taxa named by Carl Ludwig Koch