Poecilostreptus, Burns, Kevin J., Unitt, Philip & Mason, Nicholas A., 2016

Burns, Kevin J., Unitt, Philip & Mason, Nicholas A., 2016, A genus-level classification of the family Thraupidae (Class Aves: Order Passeriformes), Zootaxa 4088 (3), pp. 329-354 : 343

31. Poecilostreptus , new genus ( Fig. 5 ).

Type species. Calospiza palmeri Hellmayr, 1909 (currently Tangara palmeri ).

Included species. Poecilostreptus palmeri and P. cabanisi (Sclater, 1868) , currently recognized as Tangara palmeri and T. cabanisi . Although the name Poecilostreptus is masculine in gender and Tangara is feminine, reassignment of these species to Poecilostreptus does not entail any changed ending in a specific epithet.

Diagnosis. Both species in this genus have black spots on their foreparts forming a collar, as well as black lores and a black forehead. Although widely separated geographically, the two species also share similarities in habitat and voice (Isler & Isler 1999).

Etymology. Poecilostreptus is formed from the Greek ποικίλος (“spotted” or “dappled”) and στρεπτός (“collar”), alluding to the pattern of black spots across a whitish chest shared by P. palmeri and P. cabanisi .

Comments. The genus Tangara Brisson, 1760 , as currently recognized, is the largest genus of Neotropical birds. Sedano & Burns (2009) and Burns et al. (2014) showed that some members of the genus Thraupis Boie, 1826 , including the type species T. episcopus (Linnaeus, 1766) , are embedded within Tangara . Both Sedano & Burns (2009) and Burns et al. (2014) suggested merging these species of Thraupis into Tangara , enlarging the genus to 55 species. However, this suggestion has not been widely adopted, likely because of reluctance to recognize a genus larger than is conventional for Class Aves, as well as the larger body size of these Thraupis species relative to Tangara . Therefore, we now propose dividing the large clade encompassing Thraupis and Tangara into smaller genera. For some of these clades, names are available (see 29, 30). However, Tangara palmeri and its presumed sister T. cabanisi require a new generic name if the genus Thraupis is to be preserved. T. palmeri belongs to a clade including these Thraupis species as well as 14 other species of Tangara . However, Burns et al. (2014) did not find strong support for the placement of T. palmeri within this clade. Thus, unless a broad genus is recognized to include these Thraupis species and some or all of the species currently in the genus Tangara , a new genus name needs to be erected for T. palmeri and its presumed sister T. cabanisi (see below). Accordingly, we provide Poecilostreptus for this purpose.

Burns et al. (2014) did not sample Tangara cabanisi , the presumed sister taxon to T. palmeri . These two species are similar in plumage, habitat, and voice (Isler & Isler 1999, Hilty et al. 2011), and Isler & Isler (1999) considered them to belong to the same species group. Thus, at least until genetic data addressing the position of T. cabanisi are obtained, we recommend including it in Poecilostreptus .

Figures

FIGURE 5. Maximum clade credibility tree from the Bayesian analyses of Burns et al. (2014). Subfamily Thraupinae shown. Labeling and format as in Fig. 1.