The Yariguies brush finch (Atlapetes latinuchus yariguierum ) is a subspecies of the yellow-breasted brush finch, discovered in 2004 in Colombia.
The bird is named after the Yariguies indigenous tribe who give their name to the mountain range where the bird was found. Serranía de los Yariguíes was declared a national park last year by the Colombian government and a large forest nature reserve was recently established in the region by Fundación ProAves, Colombia's bird conservation NGO.
The feathers of the breast, abdomen, and throat are yellow; those of the coverts, primaries, secondaries, scapulars, auriculars, lores, and tail are black; the crown feathers are russet. It is unique among its conspecifics because it has a jet black back, wing and tail.
Its habitat is the remote cloud rainforest in the northern Colombia. The pristine area where the birds live is one of the last remaining such Andean cloud forests in the country. The government has established a 190,000 ha park in the region (Donegan & Huertas 2005; Huertas & Donegan 2006). The discovery was made by Thomas Donegan, of Fundación ProAves and Blanca Huertas, of the Natural History Museum and University College London, together with Elkin Briceno of CDMB. The research team had studied the isolated and densely vegetated region in various expeditions over a period of three years. Some regions had to be reached by all day hikes or helicopter drop.
