The Grey-eared Brush Finch or Gray-eared Brush-finch (Atlapetes melanolaemus) is a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the Emberizidae

Emberizidae

The Emberizidae are a large family of passerine birds. They are seed-eating birds with a distinctively shaped bill.In Europe, most species are called buntings. In North America, most of the species in this family are known as sparrows, but these birds are not closely related to the sparrows, the...

 family. It is endemic to humid Andean forests from Cusco in Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 to La Paz in Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

. It is sometimes considered a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of the Rufous-naped Brush Finch. Despite the common names, its face is not blacker than in many of its relatives and the gray "ear" is often not easily visible. Overall it resembles the Rufous-naped Brush Finch, but with darker, more olive underparts and a black throat.