Tricolored brushfinch
species of bird
The tricolored brushfinch or golden-crowned brushfinch (Atlapetes tricolor) is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae, the New World sparrows. It is endemic to Peru.
Taxonomy and systematics
The tricolored brushfinch was formally described in 1875 with the binomial Buarremon tricolor. In the early twentieth century genus Buarremon was merged into Atlapetes.
For a time what is now the Choco brushfinch (A. crassus), which had been described as a species, was considered a subspecies of the tricolored brushfinch. As early as 1960 an author advocated returning it to full species status. By 2012 the IOC had recognized it as a species. In 2014 BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World followed suit as did the Clements taxonomy in 2024. (Clements called it the golden-crowned brushfinch to avoid confusion with the two-subspecies predecessor.) 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 but has a proposal to do so under consideration.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tricolored brushfinch” as species of bird. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of bird. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2226685. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1875, 1960, 2012 and 2014.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tricolored brushfinch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.