Purplish honeycreeper

The purplish honeycreeper (Chlorophanes purpurascens) is a bird in the Thraupidae, or tanager family. It is known only from the type specimen, a trade-skin held in the British Museum, and is thought to be an intergeneric hybrid between the green honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) and either the red-legged honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus) or the blue dacnis (Dacnis cayana), though Hellmayr, in his Catalogue of birds of the Americas and the adjacent islands, considered it a good species.[1][2]

Purplish honeycreeper
Purplish honeycreeper, illustration by Joseph Smit, 1886
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Thraupidae
Genus:	Chlorophanes
Species:	C. purpurascens
Binomial name
Chlorophanes purpurascens Sclater & Salvin, 1873

The type locality on the specimen's label was given as Caracas in Venezuela. However Storer, when discussing the specimen and the characteristics of its preparation, suggested that it was more likely to derive from the Paria Peninsula of northern Venezuela.[1]

Male green honeycreeper

Male red-legged honeycreeper

Male blue dacnis

References

1. Storer, Robert W. (1957). "The Hybrid Origin of Chlorophanes purpurascens" (PDF). Auk. 74 (4): 507. doi:10.2307/4081756. JSTOR 4081756.
2. Hellmayr, C.E. (1909). "Catalogue of birds of the Americas and the adjacent islands. Part 8". Fieldiana Zoology. 13 (8): 250. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.2985.