The
ruddy-breasted seedeater (
Sporophila minuta) is a species of bird in the tanager family Thraupidae.
It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.
Its natural habitats are dry savanna, subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, and heavily degraded former forest.
Taxonomy: The ruddy-breasted seedeater was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his
Systema Naturae under the binomial name
Loxia minuta. The specific epithet is from Latin
minutus meaning "little" or "small". The type locality is Suriname. The ruddy-breasted seedeater is now placed in the genus
Sporophila that was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1844.
Three subspecies are recognised:
- S. m. parva (Lawrence, 1883) – southwest Mexico to Nicaragua
- S. m. centralis Bangs & Penard, TE, 1918 – southwest Costa Rica and south Panama
- S. m. minuta (Linnaeus, 1758) – Trinidad, Tobago and north South America