Holarctic Redpoll

The Redpolls, Acanthis is a genus of birds in the finch family Fringillidae found mostly in Europe and North America.

It contains the following species:


 * Common Redpoll, or Mealy Redpoll, Acanthis flammea
 * Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis flammaea cabaret
 * Arctic Redpoll, or Hoary Redpoll, Acanthis hornemanni

The European birds have sometimes been separated as Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cabaret, (e.g., BOU) but genetic studies have failed to find any differences between them and Common Redpolls (Ottvall et al., 2002). Worse, Marthinsen et al. (2008) found little genetic difference between any of the redpolls. There may be only one redpoll species.