''Sporophila'' 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 ...

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s 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 ...

. The genus now includes the six seed finches that were previously placed in the genus ''Oryzoborus''. They are relatively small with stubby, conical bills adapted for feeding on seeds and alike. Most species are strongly

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

, and while "typical" adult males often are distinctive, female and immatures of both sexes can be very difficult (in some species virtually impossible) to identify to exact species. Females of at least some of these species have different

ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...

colours, which can be seen by birds, but not humans. Female-like (

paedomorphic Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compare ...

) males apparently also occur, at least in some species.

Taxonomy and species list

The genus ''Spermophila'' was introduced by the English naturalist William John Swainson in 1827. 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 specime ...

was subsequently designated as Temminck's seedeater (''Sporophila falcirostris'') by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

in 1841. As the genus name ''Spermophila'' had been introduced by John Richardson in 1825 for a genus of mammals, 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 ...

coined the present name ''Sporophila'' as a replacement in 1844. The 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 p ...

' meaning "seed" and ' meaning "-loving". The genus now includes the six seed finches that were previously placed in ''Oryzoborus'' as well as the thick-billed seed finch that was the only species in ''Dolospingus''. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that these seven species were embedded in ''Sporophila''. The genus contains 40 species: Described in 2016 and not yet generally recognised: * Ibera seedeater, ''Sporophila iberaensis'' Possible extinct species: * Hooded seedeater, ''Sporophila melanops'' – possibly extinct (20th century?), a hybrid or a color morph of ''S. nigricollis''

References

* Lijtmaer, D. A., N. M. Sharpe, P. L. Tubaro & S. C. Lougheed. 2004. Molecular phylogenetics and diversification of the genus Sporophila (Aves: Passeriformes). Mol. Philo. Evol. 33:562-579. * Robbins, M. B., M. J. Braun, C. J. Huddleston, D. W. Finch, & C. M. Milensky (2005). First Guyana records, natural history, and systematics of the White-winged Seedeater (Dolospingus fringilloides). Ibis 147:334-341.

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q597127 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Bird genera Taxa named by Jean Cabanis