These species are found in more open areas in the Andes and the adjacent lowlands.

[1] The genus Catamenia was introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte.

[3] The type species was designated by the English zoologist George Robert Gray as the band-tailed seedeater in 1855.

[5] A series of molecular phylogenetic studies published in the first decade of the 21st century found that many genera in Emberizidae were more closely related to the fruit eating birds in the family Thraupidae.

[6] A genetic study of the Thraupidae published in 2014 found that Catamenia is sister to the genus Diglossa in the subfamily Diglossinae.