''Nesocharis'' is a genus of small seed-eating birds in the family

Estrildidae Estrildidae, or estrildid finches, is a family of small seed-eating passerine birds of the Old World tropics and Australasia. They comprise species commonly known as munias, mannikins, firefinches, parrotfinches and waxbills. They are gregarious ...

. They are found in Africa.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Nesocharis'' was introduced in 1903 by the English anthropologist

Boyd Alexander Lieutenant Boyd Alexander (16 January 1873 – 2 April 1910) was an English officer in the British Army, as well as an List of explorers, explorer and ornithologist. Early life Boyd was the oldest son (with a twin brother) of Lt Colonel Boyd ...

with

Shelley's oliveback Shelley's oliveback (''Nesocharis shelleyi''), also known as the Fernando Po oliveback, is a species of estrildid finch found in Africa. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 55,000 km2. It is found in Bioko island, western Cam ...

as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

. The name ''Nesocharis'' is a combination of 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 ...

''nēsos'', meaning "island" and ''kharis'', meaning "loveliness". The genus ''Nesocharis'' is sister to the waxbills in the genus ''

Coccopygia ''Coccopygia'', is a genus of small seed-eating birds in the family Estrildidae. They are distributed across central and southern Africa. Taxonomy The genus ''Coccopygia'' was introduced in 1862 by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach. The n ...

''.

Species

The genus contains two species:

References

Bird genera Estrildidae Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa Taxa named by Boyd Alexander {{Estrildidae-stub