Purplish Honeycreeper
Encyclopedia
The Purplish Honeycreeper (Chlorophanes purpurascens) is a 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 Thraupidae, or Tanager
Tanager
The tanagers comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has an American distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux...

 family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

. It is known only from the type specimen, a trade-skin held in the British Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

, and is thought to be an intergeneric hybrid between the Green Honeycreeper
Green Honeycreeper
The Green Honeycreeper is a small bird in the tanager family. It is found in the tropical New World from southern Mexico south to Brazil, and on Trinidad. It the only member of the genus Chlorophanes...

 (Chlorophanes spiza) and either the Red-legged Honeycreeper
Red-legged Honeycreeper
The Red-legged Honeycreeper is a small songbird species in the tanager family . It is found in the tropical New World from southern Mexico south to Peru, Bolivia and central Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, and on Cuba, where possibly introduced.-Description:The Red-legged Honeycreeper is on average...

 (Cyanerpes cyaneus) or the Blue Dacnis
Blue Dacnis
The Blue Dacnis or Turquoise Honeycreeper, Dacnis cayana, is a small passerine bird. This member of the tanager family is found from Nicaragua to Panama, on Trinidad, and in South America south to Bolivia and northern Argentina...

 (Dacnis cayana), though Hellmayr
Carl Edward Hellmayr
Carl Eduard Hellmayr was an Austrian ornithologist.-Life and work:Hellmayr was born in Vienna and studied at the University of Vienna, although he did not finish his degree...

, in his Catalogue of birds of the Americas and the adjacent islands, considered it a good species.

The type locality on the specimen’s label was given as Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

 in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. However Storer, when discussing the specimen and the characteristics of its preparation, suggested that it was more likely to derive from the Paria Peninsula
Paria Peninsula
Paria Peninsula is a large peninsula in Sucre State, northern Venezuela. It separates the Gulf of Paria and Caribbean Sea. Península de Paria National Park is located on the peninsula...

of northern Venezuela.

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