Amandava is a genus of the estrildid finches. These birds are found in dense grass or scrub in Africa and South Asia. They are gregarious seed-eaters with short, red bills. In earlier literature, amadavat and amidavad have been used.[1] The name amandava, along with amadavat and amidavad are all corruptions of Ahmedabad, a city in Gujarat, India from where the first few specimens of the red munia Amandava amandava were obtained.[2]
The genus Amandava was introduced in 1836 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth for the red avadavat. The genus in mentioned in a footnote to a page of an edition of Gilbert White's The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne that Blythe edited.[3] The name is derived by tautomony with the binomial name Fringilla amandava introduced for the red avadavat by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The word amandava is a corruption of Ahmedabad, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat.[4] The genus Amandava is sister to the genus Amadiva containing two African finches.[5]
The two avadavats, which are very closely related, are found in tropical South Asia, and the waxbill in Africa. Various members of this genus are sometimes placed in Sporaeginthus.