Mountain finch

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Mountain finches
Leucosticte tephrocotis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Fringillidae
Subfamily:	Carduelinae
Genus:	Leucosticte Swainson, 1832
Species
See text.

The mountain finches are birds in the genus Leucosticte from the true finch family, Fringillidae. This genus also includes the rosy finches, named from their pinkish plumage. They are apparently closely related to the bullfinches (Marten & Johnson, 1986) and to the Pine Grosbeak (Arnaiz-Villena et al., 2001), diverging from them not quite a dozen million years ago, at the end of the Middle Miocene.

These birds are native to Asia and North America and are typically found in barren mountainous regions. Many species eat more insect material than other finches.

The full list of species is:

• Plain Mountain Finch, Leucosticte nemoricola
• Black-headed Mountain Finch, Leucosticte brandti
• Tawny-headed Mountain Finch, Leucosticte sillemi
• Asian Rosy Finch, Leucosticte arctoa
• Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis
• Black Rosy Finch, Leucosticte atrata
• Brown-capped Rosy Finch, Leucosticte australis

[edit] References

• Arnaiz-Villena, A.; Guillén, J.; Ruiz-del-Valle, V.; Lowy, E.; Zamora, J.; Varela, P.; Stefani, D. & Allende, L. M. (2001): Phylogeography of crossbills, bullfinches, grosbeaks, and rosefinches. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 58: 1159–1166. PDF fulltext

• Arnaiz-Villena, A., Moscoso, J., Ruiz-del-Valle, V., Gonzalez, J., Reguera, R., Ferri, A., Wink, M., Serrano-Vela, J. I. 2008. Mitochondrial DNA Phylogenetic Definition of a Group of ‘Arid-Zone’ Carduelini Finches. The Open Ornithology Journal, Volume 1: pp.1-7. (Free download available at http://www.bentham.org/open/tooenij/openaccess2.htm) doi: 10.2174/1874453200801010001

• Marten, Jill A. & Johnson, Ned K. (1986): Genetic relationships of North American cardueline finches. Condor 88(4): 409-420. PDF fulltext