''Tachyphonus'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of birds 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 ...

. The genus was introduced by the French ornithologist

Louis Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected ...

in 1816 with the

white-lined tanager The white-lined tanager (''Tachyphonus rufus'') is a medium-sized passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. It is a resident breeder from Costa Rica south to northern Argentina and on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Taxonomy The whit ...

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 combines 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 ...

words ''takhus'' "fast" and ''phōneō '' "to speak".

Taxonomy

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 of the tanager family published in 2014 indicated that the genus as defined here is

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

and

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

relative to ''

Lanio ''Lanio'' is the genus of shrike-tanagers in the family Thraupidae. The genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with the fulvous shrike-tanager (''Lanio fulvus'') as the type species. The genus name is der ...

'' and ''

Rhodospingus The crimson-breasted finch (''Rhodospingus cruentus''), is a species of small finch-like bird native to woodland and scrub of western Ecuador and adjacent north-western Peru. It is the only member of the genus ''Rhodospingus''. It has traditional ...

''. The genus includes 5 species:

References

Bird genera {{Thraupidae-stub