''Sicalis'' 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 n ...

of birds 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 Neotrop ...

. Sometimes classified in the bunting and American sparrow family Emberizidae, more recent studies have shown it to belong in the Thraupidae.

Taxonomy and species list

The genus ''Sicalis'' was introduced in 1828 by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie. The name is from 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 ...

σικαλίς/''sikalis'', a small, black-headed bird, mentioned by Epicharmus,

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

, and other authors. It was perhaps a warbler in the genus '' Sylvia''. 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 specimen( ...

is the saffron finch. The genus now contains 13 species.

References

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Thraupidae-stub