Common Diuca-Finch Diuca diuca

Found from Patagonia north to southern Bolivia, with records in the austral winter as far north as southernmost Brazil and Uruguay, Common Diuca-Finch is a distinctive species. The species most similar in appearance is White-winged Diuca-Finch (Idiopsar speculifer), which occurs only in the high Andes of Peru, northern Chile, and Bolivia; so the distributions of the two species scarcely overlap. Although these two species share a common group (diuca-finch) and formerly were classified in the same genus (Diuca), molecular systematics has documented that these two are not sister species, with each species belonging to a different clade of tanagers (Burns et al. 2014). Common Diuca-Finch is principally gray above, becoming blackish over the wings and tail, with a white throat that contrasts somewhat with the otherwise grayish underparts. It is a generally common constituent of the avifauna in shrublands and cultivated areas and Patagonian deserts, and perches boldly atop low bushes. The common name for this species in Spanish is Diuca Común and it originally was described by Molina in 1782 as Fringilla diuca. The name diuca comes from the Mapuche name for the bird.