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 Chestnut-bellied Seed-Finch (Sporophila angolensis). They hybridize in southern Colombia (upper Magdalena Valley), but apparently only to a limited extent.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
funereus Sclater, PL, 1860 - South-eastern Mexico (southern Veracruz) southern in Caribbean lowlands to Nicaragua.
salvini Ridgway, 1884 - Southern Nicaragua, Costa Rica (except extreme south-west) and Caribbean coast of Panama.
ochrogyne (Olson, 1981) - South-western Costa Rica, and Pacific slope of Panama, including Coiba I (off southern Veraguas) to western and northern Colombia (east to Magdalena Valley and Guajira Peninsula) and extreme north-western Venezuela (western shores of L Maracaibo).
aethiops Sclater, PL, 1860 - South-western Colombia (Nariņo) and western Ecuador.
fractor (Olson, 2007) - Coiba I. (off southern Panama).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet