Buntings and New World Sparrows (Emberizidae)

Thick-billed Seed-finch (Oryzoborus funereus) - HBW 16, p. 663

French: Sporophile à bec fort German: Dickschnabel-Reisknacker Spanish: Semillero Piquigrueso
Other common names: Lesser Rice Grosbeak, Lesser Seed-finch (when treated as conspecific with O. angolensis)

Taxonomy: Oryzoborus angolensis funereus P. L. Sclater, 1860, Suchapam, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Genus sometimes subsumed in Sporophila. Molecular evidence suggests that genus as currently constituted may not be monophyletic, and some of its members may have closest relatives in Sporophila; more data necessary in order to resolve a basal polytomy in the phylogeny. Present species commonly treated as conspecific with O. angolensis; they hybridize in S Colombia (upper Magdalena Valley), but apparently only to a limited extent. Four subspecies recognized.

Subspecies and Distribution:

funereus P. L. Sclater, 1860 - SE Mexico (S Veracruz) S in Caribbean lowlands to Nicaragua.
salvini Ridgway, 1884 - S Nicaragua, Costa Rica (except extreme SW) and Caribbean coast of Panama.
ochrogyne Olson, 1981 - SW Costa Rica, and Pacific slope of Panama, including Coiba I (off S Veraguas) to W & N Colombia (E to Magdalena Valley and Guajira Peninsula) and extreme NW Venezuela (W shores of L Maracaibo).
aethiops P. L. Sclater, 1860 - SW Colombia (Nariño) and W Ecuador.