The grey-capped greenfinch or Oriental greenfinch (Chloris sinica) is a small
passerinebird in the
finch family
Fringillidae that breeds in broadleaf and conifer woodlands of the East
Palearctic.
The grey-capped greenfinch is a medium-sized finch 12.5 to 14 cm (4.9 to 5.5 in) in length, with a strong bill and a short slightly forked tail. It nests in trees or bushes, laying 3-5 eggs.[2]
In 1760 the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the grey-capped greenfinch in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in China. He used the French name Le pinçon de la Chine and the Latin Fringilla sinencis.[3] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the
binomial system and are not recognised by the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[4] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the
twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[4] One of these was the grey-capped greenfinch. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the
binomial nameFringilla sinica and cited Brisson's work.[5] The
type locality was subsequently restricted to
Macau in eastern China.[6] The
specific namesinica is
Medieval Latin for Chinese.[7]
The greenfinches were later placed in the
genusCarduelis but when
molecular phylogenetic studies found that they were not closely related to the other species in Carduelis, the greenfinches were moved to the resurrected genus Chloris.[8][9] The genus had been introduced by the French naturalist
Georges Cuvier in 1800.[10] The word Chloris is from the Ancient Greek khlōris for a
European greenfinch; the specific epithet sinica is
Mediaeval Latin for "Chinese".[11]
^
abAllen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335.
hdl:
2246/678.
^Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1968).
Check-list of birds of the world. Vol. 14. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 236.
^Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.).
"Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 1 May 2018.