''Zonotrichia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of five extant American sparrows of the family

Passerellidae 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 ...

. Four of the species are North American, but the rufous-collared sparrow breeds in highlands from the extreme southeast of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

, and on Hispaniola.

Etymology

The genus name ''Zonotrichia'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

(, ) and (, ).

Species

The species in the genus ''Zonotrichia'' are: These birds have brown backs streaked with black, and distinctive head markings. Their

cup nest A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian bla ...

s, built by the female, are of plant material lined with fine grasses and constructed on the ground, low in a tree or bush, or in a niche in a wall. The female lays brown-blotched greenish-blue or greenish white eggs, which she incubates for 12–14 days. The male helps in feeding the chicks. ''Zonotrichia'' sparrows feed on the ground on seeds, fallen grain,

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s and

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q914721 Bird genera American sparrows Taxa named by William John Swainson