The sayaca tanager was
formally described in 1766 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus in the
12th edition of his
Systema Naturae under the
binomial name Tanagra sayaca. In 1648, well before the introduction of the binomial system, the German naturalist
Georg Marcgrave had described the sayaca tanager as the
Sayacu in his
Historia Naturalis Brasiliae. The specific epithet is from
Tupi Saí-acú meaning "very lively"; it was applied to various tanagers. The
type locality is the state of
Pernambuco in Brazil. This species is now placed in the
genus Thraupis that was introduced by the German naturalist
Friedrich Boie in 1826. Three
subspecies are recognised: •
T. s. boliviana Bond &
Meyer de Schauensee, 1941 – north Bolivia •
T. s. obscura Naumburg, 1924 – central, south Bolivia to west Argentina •
T. s. sayaca (
Linnaeus, 1766) – east, south Brazil, Paraguay, northeast Argentina and Uruguay ==References==