Thlypopsis


Thlypopsis is a genus of birds in the tanager family Thraupidae.

Taxonomy and species list

The genus Thlypopsis was introduced by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis in 1851. The name combines the Ancient Greek thlupis, a word for an unknown small bird, and opsis meaning "appearance". The type species was subsequently designated as the orange-headed tanager.
The chestnut-headed tanager was formerly placed in the genus Pyrrhocoma and the superciliaried hemispingus in Hemispingus. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that these two species were embedded in Thlypopsis.
The genus contains eight species:
ImageScientific nameCommon nameDistribution
Thlypopsis fulvicepsFulvous-headed tanagerSerranía del Perijá, Cordillera de Mérida and Venezuelan Coastal Range.
Thlypopsis inornataBuff-bellied tanagerPeru and far southern Ecuador
Thlypopsis sordidaOrange-headed tanagerArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.
Thlypopsis pyrrhocoma Chestnut-headed tanager
east Paraguay, northeast Argentina, and south Brazil
Thlypopsis ruficepsRust-and-yellow tanagerArgentina, Bolivia, and Peru
Thlypopsis superciliaris Superciliaried hemispingusnorthern Andes
Thlypopsis ornataRufous-chested tanagerEcuador, Peru and southwestern Colombia
Thlypopsis pectoralisBrown-flanked tanagerPeru