The fawn-breasted tanager (Pipraeidea melanonota) is a species of tanager with a blue head and yellow breast. It occurs in the Andes of northwestern Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as in the highlands of northeastern Argentina, south Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Taxonomy The fawn-breasted tanager was described in 1819 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot from a specimen obtained in Brazil. He coined the binomial name Tangara melanonota. The specific name melanonota is from the Ancient Greek melas "black" and nōtos "back". The current genus Pipraeidea was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827. The name combines the genus Pipra which had been introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1764 with the Ancient Greek eidos meaning "form" or "likeness".
Recent DNA evidence places this species as closely related probable relation to the blue-and-yellow tanager
Two subspecies are currently recognized
P. m. melanonota (Vieillot, 1819), the nominate subspecies, inhabits open areas (forest borders and fields) in southeastern Brazil, eastern Paraguay, and northeastern Argentina south to Punta Indio. P. m. venezuelensis (Sclater, PL, 1857) inhabits Andean slopes or proximal areas in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northeastern Argentina.
