Gough Island Finch

SCI Name:  Rowettia goughensis
Protonym:  Nesospiza goughensis Bull.Br.Orn.Club 15 p.18
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Thraupidae / Rowettia
Taxonomy Code:  goifin1
Type Locality:  Gough Island.
Author:  Clarke, WE
Publish Year:  1904
IUCN Status:  Critically Endangered

DEFINITIONS

ROWETTIA
(Thraupidae; Ϯ Gough Finch R. goughensis) John Quiller Rowett (1876-1924) English businessman, sponsor of Shackleton-Rowett expedition to the Antarctic 1921-1922; "Rowettia, gen. nov.  Eagle Clarke referred the Gough Island Bunting to the genus Nesospiza, but neither the form of the bill, colour-pattern, nor other generic characters agree with the characters possessed by the type-species of Nesospiza (N. acunhæ Cabanis, J.f.O. 1873, p. 154).  Curiously enough, too, in his remarks on N. goughensis (Ibis, 1905, p. 256), Eagle Clarke calls attention to the "strong resemblance of that species to the adult male of Phrygilus (more properly, Melanodera) xanthogrammus of the Falklands."  The Gough Island Bunting is undoubtedly very much closer to Melanodera than to Nesospiza.   ...   I propose the generic name Rowettia for the Gough Island Bunting, a name bestowed in honour of Mr. Rowett, to whose material aid the Expedition owed its success." (Lowe 1923); "Rowettia Lowe, 1923, Ibis, p. 512. Type, by monotypy, Nesospiza goughensis Clarke." (Paynter in Peters 1970, XIII, 112).

goughensis
Gough I., South Atlantic Ocean (named after Capt. Charles Gough, of "Richmond," who sighted the island in 1732).