Variable Seedeater - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The taxonomy is highly confusing. Sporophila corvina was formerly considered a subspecies of Sporophila americana from north-eastern South America, in which case the combined species (also incl. S. murallae from western Amazonia) had the common name Variable Seedeater. They were split based mainly on the work by Stiles (1996), but the taxa east (americana group and murallae) and west (corvina group) of the Andes had actually been considered separate species until they were merged into a single species by Meyer de Schauensee in 1952.

Following the split, additional confusion existed over the correct scientific name for present species. The name Sporophila aurita (Bonaparte, 1850) predates S. corvina by 10 years, and was widely believed to be the correct scientific name. However, the type for S. aurita has since disappeared and the original description was very vague, making it impossible to judge which population the name refers to. The name therefore becomes invalid, instead leading to S. corvina being the correct name.

Even after the split, the males of the remaining taxa have very different plumages, and the common name "Variable Seedeater" is fully deserved. The mainly black S. c. corvina has been considered a separate species, the Black Seedeater, from the remaining pied subspecies. As all subspecies hybridize freely wherever they meet, this is generally not recognized anymore. In large parts of Costa Rica and Panama it is impossible to clearly assign individuals to specific subspecies, where most instead show some level of intergradation between S. c. corvina, S. c. hoffmannii and/or S. c. hicksii. Some of these hybrid populations have in the past been recognized as separate subspecies, e.g. semicollaris, fortipes and collaris from Panama alone.