New World sparrows are a group of mainly New World

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

birds, forming the family Passerellidae. They are seed-eating

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s with conical bills, brown or gray in color, and many species have distinctive head patterns. Although they share the name sparrow, New World sparrows are more closely related to Old World buntings than they are to the

Old World sparrow Old World sparrows are a group of small passerine birds forming the family Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, a name also used for a particular genus of the family, '' Passer''. They are distinct from both the New World sparrows, ...

s (family Passeridae). New World sparrows are also similar in both appearance and habit to

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are us ...

es, with which they sometimes used to be classified.

Taxonomy

The genera now assigned to the family Passerellidae were previously included with the buntings in the family Emberizidae. A

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis of nuclear and

mitochondrial A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is us ...

DNA sequences published in 2015 found that the Passerellidae formed a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

group that had an uncertain relationship to the Emberizidae. Emberizidae was therefore split and the family Passerellidae resurrected. It had originally been introduced, as the subfamily Passerellinae, by the German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 183 ...

in 1851. The

International Ornithological Congress International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(IOC) recognizes 138 species in the family, distributed among these 30 genera. For more detail, see list of New World sparrow species. Passerellidae Below is a phylogeny based on a 2016 study by Bryson and colleagues.

Morphology

Being a member of Emberizoidea, New World sparrows have only nine easily visible

primary feathers Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tai ...

on each wing (they also have a 10th primary, but it is greatly reduced and largely concealed). Despite their name, not all of the New World sparrows resemble the typical image of a sparrow. Species in the

neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biog ...

tend to be much larger with bold patterns of greens, reds, yellows, and grays. Those in the

Nearctic realm The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America ...

are smaller, with brown bodies streaked and with some head patterns. Some even have

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

such as the

lark bunting The lark bunting (''Calamospiza melanocorys'') is a medium-sized American sparrow native to central and western North America. It was designated the state bird of Colorado in 1931. Taxonomy The lark bunting was monotypic, the only member of th ...

and

eastern towhee The eastern towhee (''Pipilo erythrophthalmus'') is a large New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been under debate in recent decades, and formerly this bird and the spotted towhee were considered a single species, the rufous-sided ...

Habitat and distribution

The New World sparrows are found throughout in the Americas, from their breeding ranges in the Arctic

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless m ...

of North America to their year-round ranges in the

Southern Cone The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...

of South America. Given this huge expansive range, many species occupy different habitats such as grasslands, rainforests, temperate forests, and deserts and xeric shrublands. Those that breed in the northern parts of North America, such as the

white-throated sparrow The white-throated sparrow (''Zonotrichia albicollis'') is a passerine bird of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae. Etymology The genus name ''Zonotrichia'' is from Ancient Greek (, ) and (, ). The specific ''albicollis'' is from Lati ...

and Lincoln's sparrow, migrate further southward into the continent during the winter, while others like the

dark-eyed junco The dark-eyed junco (''Junco hyemalis'') is a species of junco, a group of small, grayish New World sparrows. This bird is common across much of temperate North America and in summer ranges far into the Arctic. It is a very variable species, muc ...

have been able to adapt to staying all year-round in some areas of North America. Most North American passerellid species usually migrate short distances. Some of the Southern Cone species move northward during autumn. In the breeding season, sparrows of different species form small-to-medium flocks, as they do when foraging in the non-breeding season.

Gallery

Notes

References

External links

American Sparrow videos, photos and sounds
on the Internet Bird Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:sparrow, American

American sparrow New World sparrows are a group of mainly New World passerine birds, forming the family Passerellidae. They are seed-eating birds with conical bills, brown or gray in color, and many species have distinctive head patterns. Although they share t ...

Songbirds Bird common names Bird families Passeroidea