Green Honeycreeper

The green honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) is a small bird in the tanager family. It is found in the tropical New World from southern Mexico south to Brazil, and on Trinidad. It is the only member of the genus Chlorophanes. == Taxonomy == The green honeycreeper was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the name Motacilla spiza. He specified the type locality as Suriname. The specific epithet is the Ancient Greek word for a common finch. Linnaeus based his description on the "green black-cap fly-catcher" that the English naturalist George Edwards had described and illustrated in his 1743 book A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. In 1853 the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach erected the genus Chlorophanes to accommodate the green honeycreeper. The name combines the Ancient Greek khlōros meaning green with -phanēs meaning showing. A comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the tanager family Thraupidae published in 2014 found that the green honeycreeper and the golden-collared honeycreeper (Iridophanes pulcherrimus) were sister species. Seven subspecies are recognised: C. s. guatemalensis Sclater, PL, 1861 – south Mexico to Honduras C. s. argutus Bangs & Barbour, 1922 – east Honduras to northwest…