Vorstman's Guideto the birds of the Andes and West Coast

All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies

Tanagers and allies | Thraupidae

Tangaren | Tángaras | Tanagers and allies

One of the largest bird families in the world, with two hundred and ninety-nine species in ninety-one genera in this guide, from coastal desert, dry scrub and the grasslands of páramo and puna to rainforest, cloud forest and gardens, with the greatest richness on the humid slopes of the Andes. The family has been established in its current form only through DNA studies and includes birds of very different appearance. The typical tanagers, such as the species of Tangara, are small to medium-sized birds with a short, stout bill and often brilliantly colourful plumage; they eat mainly fruit and insects and travel through the canopy in mixed flocks. Also included are the honeycreepers and dacnises, with thin, curved bills and glossy blue or green plumage, which take nectar, fruit and insects; the flowerpiercers, whose hook-tipped bill slits the corolla to steal nectar; the Bananaquit; the seedeaters and the saltators with their thick seed-cracking bills; the sierra finches and yellow finches of the high Andes; and Darwin's finches of the Galápagos, which have evolved there into species with strikingly different bills. Song is usually simple, but clear and melodious in the saltators. The nest is generally an open cup in a tree or shrub, usually with two eggs; the Bananaquit builds a domed nest and the Swallow Tanager breeds in a burrow in a bank.

Native species 283 species

Species that occur here by nature: breeding birds, winter visitors and passage migrants. They are arranged by genus, in the sequence of the list.

Calochaetes 1 species

Poospizopsis 2 species

Embernagra 1 species

Bangsia 5 species

Microspingus 5 species

Chlorophanes 1 species

Poecilostreptus 1 species

Schistochlamys 1 species

Eucometis 1 species

Anisognathus 5 species

Geospiza 9 species

Coryphospingus 2 species

Lophospingus 2 species

Ramphocelus 5 species

Conothraupis 1 species

Xenodacnis 1 species

Haplospiza 1 species

Iridosornis 5 species

Sphenopsis 4 species

Tephrophilus 1 species

Donacospiza 1 species

Loriotus 3 species

Incaspiza 5 species

Dubusia 2 species

Ixothraupis 5 species

Piezorina 1 species

Paroaria 4 species

Pseudosaltator 1 species

Chrysothlypis 1 species

Thraupis 4 species

Rhodospingus 1 species

Xenospingus 1 species

Pipraeidea 1 species

Tachyphonus 4 species

Tersina 1 species

Sicalis 10 species

Coryphaspiza 1 species

Certhidea 2 species

Chlorornis 1 species

Sericossypha 1 species

Creurgops 2 species

Cypsnagra 1 species

Rauenia 1 species

Cyanerpes 3 species

Catamblyrhynchus 1 species

Urothraupis 1 species

Sporathraupis 1 species

Trichothraupis 1 species

Coereba 1 species

Tangara 19 species

Chalcothraupis 1 species

Tiaris 1 species

Melanospiza 1 species

Thlypopsis 7 species

Volatinia 1 species

Nephelornis 1 species

Asemospiza 2 species

Saltator 11 species

Emberizoides 1 species

Lanio 2 species

Saltatricula 2 species

Idiopsar 4 species

Catamenia 3 species

Pseudospingus 2 species

Rhopospina 2 species

Sporophila 28 species

Neothraupis 1 species

Geospizopsis 2 species

Heliothraupis 1 species

Wetmorethraupis 1 species

Dacnis 8 species

Platyspiza 1 species

Nemosia 1 species

Chlorochrysa 3 species

Iridophanes 1 species

Poospiza 6 species

Cissopis 1 species

Diglossa 12 species

Cnemoscopus 1 species

Conirostrum 11 species

Hemithraupis 2 species

Parkerthraustes 1 species

Heterospingus 1 species

Stilpnia 11 species

Charitospiza 1 species

Buthraupis 1 species

Camarhynchus 5 species

Cnemathraupis 2 species

Phrygilus 2 species

Kleinothraupis 3 species

Vagrants 8 species

Birds blown in from other continents. They have no range here, and so no distribution map.