Amandava

Amandava is a genus of the estrildid finches. These birds are found in dense grass or scrub in Africa and South Asia. They are gregarious seed-eaters with short, red bills. In earlier literature, amadavat and amidavad have been used. The name amandava, along with amadavat and amidavad are all corruptions of Ahmedabad, a city in Gujarat, India, from where the first few specimens of the red munia Amandava amandava were obtained.

==Taxonomy== The genus Amandava was introduced in 1836 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth for the red avadavat. The genus in mentioned in a footnote to a page of an edition of Gilbert White's The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne that Blythe edited. The name is derived by tautomony with the binomial name Fringilla amandava introduced for the red avadavat by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The word amandava is a corruption of Ahmedabad, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat. The genus Amandava is sister to the genus Amadina containing two African finches.