Genus sometimes subsumed in Sporophila. Molecular evidence suggests that genus as currently constituted may not be monophyletic, and some of its members may have closest relatives in Sporophila. More data necessary in order to resolve a basal polytomy in the phylogeny. Present species commonly treated as conspecific with Thick-billed Seed-Finch (Sporophila funerea). They hybridize in southern Colombia (upper Magdalena Valley), but apparently only to a limited extent.
Proposed subspecies theobromae (known from two specimens from upper Magdalena Valley in Tolima and Huila, in Colombia) is synonymized with torridus.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
torrida (Scopoli, 1769) - Eastern and south-eastern Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, the Guianas, and Amazonian Brazil south to lowlands of eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru.
angolensis (Linnaeus, 1766) - Central and eastern Brazil (Mato Grosso, Goiás and Piauí south to Rio Grande do Sul) to northern and eastern Bolivia (Beni and Santa Cruz), Paraguay and extreme north-eastern Argentina (Misiones).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet