Gray-headed Silverbill

SCI Name:  Odontospiza griseicapilla
Protonym:  Lonchura griseicapilla Zoologica 28 p.82
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Estrildidae / Odontospiza
Taxonomy Code:  gyhsil1
Type Locality:  
Author:  Delacour
Publish Year:  1943
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

ODONTOSPIZA
(Estrildidae; Ϯ Grey-headed Silverbill O. griseicapilla) Gr. οδους odous, οδοντος odontos  tooth; σπιζα spiza  finch  < σπιζω spizō  to chirp; "ODONTOSPIZA, ^a new genus.  Similar to Spermestes Swainson, but bill more turgid and more conical: the maxillar tomium with a well-defined obtusely angular tooth-like lobe near the middle; the mandibular tomium with a sharply defined basal angle, the edge straight from the gape to this point, and straight or even slightly concave thence to the tip, whereas in Spermestes the cutting edge of the mandible is a more or less regular convex curve from gape to tip, the basal angle being much rounded and comparatively inconspicuous; nostrils not set into the corneous base of the maxilla, as in Spermestes, but wholly posterior, so that their anterior margin, as well as the rest of the latero-basal outline of the maxilla, is much less concave; nasal fossæ quite filled with short feathers which completely cover the nares; tail longer, about three-fourths instead of two-thirds the length of wing; tertials much shorter.   Type. — Pitylia caniceps Reichenow.  This peculiar species was placed by Doctor Sharpe in the oriental genus Uroloncha, but it is manifestly out of place in such company  ...  The type is the only species referable to this new genus.   ...   ^a οδους, dens; σπιζα, fringilla." (Oberholser 1905); "Odontospiza Oberholser, 1905 (July), Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 28, p. 883. Type, by original designation, Pitylia caniceps Reichenow [(1879, not Munia caniceps Salvadori 1876) = Lonchura griseicapilla Delacour 1943]." (Traylor in Peters 1968, XIV, 369).

griseicapilla / griseicapillus
Med. L. griseum  grey; L. -capillus  -capped  < capillus  hair of the head.
● ex “Trepadore palido y roxo” of de Azara 1802-1805, no. 244 (Sittasomus).