Slaty Brushfinch

The slaty brushfinch or northern slaty brushfinch (Atlapetes schistaceus) is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae, the New World sparrows. It is found from Venezuela to Ecuador. == Taxonomy and systematics == The slaty brushfinch was formally described in 1840 with the binomial Tanagra (Arremon) schistaceus. It was reassigned to its present genus Atlapetes in 1911. The slaty brushfinch has these four subspecies: A. s. fumidus Wetmore & Phelps, WH Jr, 1953 A. s. castaneifrons (Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1875) A. s. tamae Cory, 1913 A. s. schistaceus (Boissonneau, 1840) What is now the Cuzco brushfinch (A. canigenis) was long treated as another subspecies but by the early twenty-first century it was widely recognized as a full species. What most taxonomic systems recognize as Taczanowski's brushfinch (A. taczanowskii) was also long treated as another subspecies. BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World recognized it as a species in 2016. The IOC and the Clements taxonomy followed suit in 2024, though Clements calls it the Peruvian slaty brushfinch. The first version of AviList in 2025 also recognized it. However, as of February 2026 the independent South American Classification Committee has declined to recognize the split. This article…