The chestnut-headed tanager (''Thlypopsis pyrrhocoma'') is a species of bird in the tanager family

Thraupidae The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family (biology), 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 ...

. It is found in the Atlantic Forest of southeast Brazil, eastern Paraguay, and far northeastern Argentina. It was formerly the only member of the genus ''Pyrrhocoma'' but is now placed in ''

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 ...

''.

Taxonomy

The chestnut-headed tanager was

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

in 1844 by the English naturalist

Hugh Edwin Strickland Hugh Edwin Strickland (2 March 1811 – 14 September 1853) was an English geologist, ornithology, ornithologist, naturalist and systematist. Through the British Association, he proposed a series of rules for the nomenclature of organisms in zool ...

under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Tachyphonus ruficeps''. The species was subsequently placed in the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus ''Pyrrhocoma'' by the German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. He worked at the bird collections of the Natural History Museum in Berlin becoming its first curator of birds in 1850. He founded the ''Journal für Ornithologie ...

. 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 the chestnut-headed tanager was embedded in a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

containing members of the genus ''

''. The genera were therefore merged but as ''Thlypopsis'' already contained the

rust-and-yellow tanager The rust-and-yellow tanager (''Thlypopsis ruficeps'') is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forest Montane ecosystems are fo ...

as ''Thlypopsis ruficeps'' d'Orbigny & Lafresnaye, 1837, a new specific epithet ''pyrrhocoma'' was coined for the chestnut-headed tanager, using the earlier generic name "to communicate past taxonomic connections". The name comes from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''purrhokomēs'' meaning "red-haired". The species is

: no

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised.

Description

The chestnut-headed tanager is strongly sexual dimorphic: the male is a predominantly grey bird with a chestnut-brown head and a black mask. The female is olive green above and grey below, with a hint of rust on the crown. The song consists of a very bright "''pseee-pseee-pseee'', ''twee-tweee-tweee''".

References

chestnut-headed tanager Birds of the Atlantic Forest Birds of the Selva Misionera chestnut-headed tanager Tanagers {{Thraupidae-stub