Nicaraguan Seed-Finch

The Nicaraguan seed finch is 14 to 14.5 cm (5.5 to 5.7 in) long and weighs about 24 g (0.85 oz). It has a short bill with a very deep base and a rounded culmen. The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males are almost entirely black with dusky grayish inner webs on the primaries. Females have a dark brown head and upperparts. Their underparts are usually brown and sometimes deep cinnamon brown. Juveniles resemble adult females. Both sexes have a brown iris and blackish legs. Males have an ivory to pink bill and females a blackish bill with a pinkish ivory base to the mandible.

The Nicaraguan seed finch is found on the Caribbean slope from the western Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte in northeastern Nicaragua south through Costa Rica to Veraguas Province in western Panama. It was known only in Nicaragua until the 1960s when a range expansion took it into Costa Rica and Panama, apparently as a result of forests being converted to pastures. The species inhabits "marshy, grassy and weedy areas". These include flooded pastures and tall grass on the edges of oxbow lakes, ponds, and small watercourses. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 500 m (1,600 ft).

The Nicaraguan seed finch's diet has not been studied. It is known to include seeds and probably also includes insects and maybe small fruits. It usually forages singly or in pairs in the breeding season; outside that time it forages in small flocks with other seed-eating species.