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The Finch
A perched Finch
The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. These mainly seed-eating songbirds are found mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, with one subfamily endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily monotypic at genus level found only in the Palaearctic. The scientific name Fringillidae comes from the Latin word fringilla for the Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), a member of that last subfamily, which is common in Europe.
There are many birds in other families that are also called “finches”. They are generally Passeroidea and thus not too distantly related to true finches. These “other” finches include many species in the very similar-looking waxbills (family Estrildidae) which occur in the Old World tropics and Australia, and several groups of the bunting and American sparrow family (Emberizidae) are also named as finches.
The “classical” true finches are small to moderately large and have strong, stubby beaks, which in some species can be quite large. Hawaiian honeycreepers are famous for the wide range of bill shapes and sizes brought about by adaptive radiation. All have 12 remiges and nine primary rectrices.
The true finches range in size from the Andean Siskin (Carduelis spinescens) at 9.5 centimeter (3.8 in) and 8.4 gram (0.3 oz) to the Collared Grosbeak (Mycerobas affinis) with its nearly 23 cm (9 in) and 80 g (3 oz). The basic plumage colour is brownish, sometimes greenish; not a few have considerable amounts of black, while white plumage is generally absent except as wing-bars or other signalling marks.
Bright yellow and red carotenoid pigments are commonplace in this family, and thus blue structural colours are rather rare, as the yellow pigments turn the blue color into green. Many, but by no means all true finches have strong sexual dichromatism, their females typically lacking the bright carotenoid markings of males.
They are typically inhabitants of well-wooded areas, but some can be found on mountains or even in deserts. They are primarily granivorous, but euphoniines include considerable amounts of arthropods and berries in their diet, and Hawaiian honeycreepers evolved to utilize a wide range of food sources including nectar.
The diet of Fringillidae nestlings includes various amounts of small arthropods. True finches have a bouncing flight like most small passerines, alternating bouts of flapping with gliding on closed wings. Most sing well and several are commonly-seen cagebirds; foremost among these is the domesticated Canary (Serinus canaria domestica). The nests are basket-shaped and usually built in trees, more rarely in bushes, between rocks or on similar substrate.
The taxonomic structure of the true finch family, Fringillidae, has been fairly disputed in the past, with some upranking the Hawaiian honeycreepers (Drepanidinae) as family Drepanididae and/or uniting the cardueline and fringilline finches as tribes (Carduelini and Fringillini) in one subfamily; the euphonious finches (Euphoniinae) were thought to be tanagers due to general similarity in appearance and mode of life until their real affinities were realized.
In particular North American authors have often have merged the buntings and American sparrow family (Emberizidae) – and sometimes the bulk of the nine-primaried oscines – with the split-up Fringillidae as subfamilies of a single massive family. But the current understanding of Passeroidea phylogeny is better reflected in keeping the fundamental nine-primaried oscine clades as distinct families. However, Przewalski’s “Rosefinch” (Urocynchramus pylzowi) is now classified as a distinct family, monotypic as to genus and species, and with no particularly close relatives among the Passeroidea.
Fossil remains of true finches are rare, and those that are known can mostly be assigned to extant genera at least. Like the other Passeroidea families, the true finches seem to be of roughly Middle Miocene origin, around 20-10 million years ago (Ma). An unidentifable finch fossil from the Messinian age, around 12 to 7.3 million years ago (Ma) during the Late Miocene subepoch, has been found at Polgárdi in Hungary.
(Source: Wikipedia – The Free Online Encyclopedia)
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