Red-faced Pytilia

SCI Name:  Pytilia hypogrammica
Protonym:  Pytelia hypogrammica Ibis p.56
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Estrildidae / Pytilia
Taxonomy Code:  refpyt1
Type Locality:  Fantee, Gold Coast.
Author:  Sharpe
Publish Year:  1870
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

PYTILIA
(Estrildidae; Ϯ Red-winged Pytilia P. phoenicoptera) Dim. < genus Pitylus Cuvier, 1829, grosbeak; "RED WINGED BENGALY.  Pytilia phœnicoptera, SWAINS.  ...  Nearly all the types which represent the order of waders have the bill much more lengthened than any of their immediate congeners. We see this throughout  all the larger groups of nature, whether in quadrupeds or birds, fishes or insects. We may even trace it in the present subfamily, in the genus Carduelis, and we find this same character in the type before us, distinguished as it is by having a more lengthened bill than is to be found in any of the divisions just made. It is separated from Estrelda by its short tail, and from Amadina by its lengthened bill. A second example is that lovely bird the Fringilla elegans of authors. Both these, in addition to the above characters, have the second quill shortened, and conspicuously narrowed towards the end; the feet are small, and the tail almost even; the bill, as before observed, is shaped like that of Euplectes." (Swainson 1837); "Pytilia¹ Swainson, 1837, Birds W. Africa, 1, p. 203. Type, by monotypy, Pytilia phoenicoptera Swainson.  ...  ¹ Swainson, 1837 (March or May), Birds W. Africa, 1, p. 203, used Pytilia, and in 1837 (June or July), Class. Birds, 2, p. 280, used Pytelia. In the absence of any indication as to which he preferred I use the earliest name." (Traylor in Peters 1968, XIV, 312).
Var. Pitylia, Pytelia, Pitelia.
Synon. Marquetia, Zonogastris.

hypogrammica / hypogrammicum / hypogrammicus
Gr. ὑπο hupo  beneath; γραμμικος grammikos  lined, linear  < γραμμη grammē  line  < γραφω graphō  to write.