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The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine in the family Fringillidae. Finches generally have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usually resident and do not Bird migration. They have a worldwide native distribution except for Australia and the polar regions. The family Fringillidae contains more than two hundred species divided into fifty genera. It includes the Canary bird, , redpolls, , grosbeaks and , as well as the morphologically divergent Hawaiian honeycreepers.
Many birds in other families are also commonly called "finches". These groups include the (Estrildidae) of the Old World tropics and Australia; some members of the Old World Emberiza family (Emberizidae) and the New World sparrow family (Passerellidae); and the Darwin's finches of the Galapagos islands, now considered members of the tanager family (Thraupidae).Newton (1973), Clement et al. (1993)
Finches and canaries were used in the UK, US and Canada in the coal mining industry to detect carbon monoxide from the eighteenth to twentieth century. This practice ceased in the UK in 1986.
Limits of the genera and relationships among the species are less understood – and subject to more controversy – in the carduelines than in any other species of passerines, with the possible exception of the estrildines waxbills.Beginning around 1990 a series of phylogenetic studies based on Mitochondrion and nuclear DNA sequences resulted in substantial revisions in the taxonomy. Several groups of birds that had previously been assigned to other families were found to be related to the finches. The Neotropical Euphonia and the Chlorophonia were formerly placed in the tanager family Thraupidae due to their similar appearance but analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences revealed that both genera were more closely related to the finches. They are now placed in a separate subfamily Euphoniinae within the Fringillidae. The Hawaiian honeycreepers were at one time placed in their own family, Drepanididae but were found to be closely related to the Carpodacus rosefinches and are now placed within the Carduelinae subfamily. The three largest genera, Carpodacus, Carduelis and Serinus were found to be polyphyletic. Each was split into monophyletic genera. The American rosefinches were moved from Carpodacus to Haemorhous. Carduelis was split by moving the greenfinches to Chloris and a large clade into Spinus leaving just three species in the original genus. Thirty seven species were moved from Serinus to Crithagra leaving eight species in the original genus. Today the family Fringillidae is divided into three subfamilies, the Fringillinae containing a single genus with the chaffinches, the Carduelinae containing 183 species divided into 49 genera, and the Euphoniinae containing the Euphonia and the Chlorophonia.
Although Przewalski's "rosefinch" ( Urocynchramus pylzowi) has ten primary flight feathers rather than the nine primaries of other finches, it was sometimes classified in the Carduelinae. It is now assigned to a distinct family, Urocynchramidae, monotypic as to genus and species, and with no particularly close relatives among the Passeroidea.
Finches are typically inhabitants of well-wooded areas, but some can be found on mountains or even in .
Subfamily Fringillinae
Fossil record
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 to 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.Hír et al. (2001), Mlíkovský (2002) (2025). 9781607418443, Nova Science Publishers. ISBN 9781607418443
Description
The smallest "classical" true finches are the Andean siskin ( Spinus spinescens) at as little as 9.5 cm (3.8 in) and the lesser goldfinch ( Spinus psaltria) at as little as . The largest species is probably the collared grosbeak ( Mycerobas affinis) at up to and , although larger lengths, to in the pine grosbeak ( Pinicola enucleator), and weights, to in the evening grosbeak ( Hesperiphona vespertina), have been recorded in species which are slightly smaller on average. Finches and Sparrows by Peter Clement. Princeton University Press (1999). . CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (1992), . They typically have strong, stubby , which in some species can be quite large; however, Hawaiian honeycreepers are famous for the wide range of bill shapes and sizes brought about by adaptive radiation. All true finches have 9 primary remiges and 12 rectrices. The basic plumage colour is brownish, sometimes greenish; many have considerable amounts of black, while white plumage is generally absent except as wing-bars or other signalling marks. Bright yellow and red carotenoid 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, the females typically lacking the bright carotenoid markings of males.
Distribution and habitat
The finches have a near-global distribution, being found across the Americas, Eurasia and Africa, as well as some island groups such as the Hawaiian islands. They are absent from Australasia, Antarctica, the Southern Pacific and the islands of the Indian Ocean, although some European species have been widely introduced in Australia and New Zealand.
Behaviour
The finches are primarily granivorous, but Euphoniinae include considerable amounts of and berries in their diet, and Hawaiian honeycreepers evolution to utilize a wide range of food sources, including nectar. The diet of Fringillidae includes a varying amount of small arthropods. True finches have a bouncing flight like most small , alternating bouts of flapping with gliding on closed wings. Most sing well and several are commonly seen ; foremost among these is the domestication Domestic Canary ( Serinus canaria domestica). The nests are basket-shaped and usually built in trees, more rarely in bushes, between rocks or on similar substrate.
List of genera
The family Fringillidae contains 235 species divided into 50 genera and three subfamilies. The subfamily Carduelinae includes 18 extinct Hawaiian honeycreepers and the extinct Bonin grosbeak. See List of Fringillidae species for further details.
Subfamily Euphoniinae
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See also
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