Ortygospiza

The quailfinch (Ortygospiza atricollis) is a species of the estrildid finch. It is found in open grasslands in Africa. They are gregarious seed-eaters with short, thick, red bills. They are very terrestrial, with lark-like feet and claws.

==Taxonomy== The quailfinch was formally described in 1817 by the French ornithologist Louis Vieillot based on a specimen collected in Senegal. Vieillot coined the binomial name Fringilla atricollis where the specific epithet is from Latin ater meaning "black" and Modern Latin -collis meaning "-necked" or "-throated". The quailfinch is now the only species placed in the genus Ortygospiza that was introduced in 1850 by Carl Jakob Sundevall. Sundevall created the genus for a single species, Fringilla polyzona Temminck, 1823, which is now treated as a junior synonym of Fringilla atricollis Vieillot, 1817. The genus name Ortygospiza combines the Ancient Greek ορτυξ/ortux, ορτυγος/ortugos meaning "quail" with σπιζα/spiza meaning "finch".