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 generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

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

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

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 Bunting may refer to: Birds * ''Emberiza'', a group of Old World passerine birds * ''Passerina'', a group of birds in the Cardinalidae family known as the North American buntings * Blue bunting, ''Cyanocompsa parellina'' * Lark bunting, ''Calam ...

than they are to the

Old World sparrow Old World sparrows are a group of small passerine birds forming the family (biology), 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 ...

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 generally have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where the ...

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 The buntings are a group of Old World passerine birds forming the genus ''Emberiza'', the only genus in the family Emberizidae. The family contains 44 species. They are seed-eating birds with stubby, conical bills. Taxonomy The family Emberizid ...

. A

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

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 used ...

DNA sequences published in 2015 found that the Passerellidae formed a

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

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. He worked at the bird collections of the Natural History Museum in Berlin becoming its first curator of birds in 1850. He founded the ''Journal für Ornithologie ...

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 140 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 Robert 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 biogeog ...

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 t ...

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

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

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 is monotypic, the only member of the ...

and

eastern towhee The eastern towhee (''Pipilo erythrophthalmus''), also known as chewink, joree, or joree bird, is a large American sparrow, New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been under debate in recent decades, and formerly this bird and the spo ...

Habitat and distribution

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

tundra In physical geography, a tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: #Arctic, Arctic, Alpine tundra, Alpine, and #Antarctic ...

of North America to their year-round ranges in the

Southern Cone The Southern Cone (, ) 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, bounded on the west by the Pac ...

of South America. Given this huge expansive range, many species occupy different habitats such as grasslands, rainforests, temperate forests, and

deserts and xeric shrublands Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (Ancient Greek 'dry') shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this habitat ...

. 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. It breeds in northern North America and winters in the southern United States. Taxonomy In 1760 the English naturalist ...

and

Lincoln's sparrow Lincoln's sparrow (''Melospiza lincolnii'') is a small sparrow native to North America. It is a less common passerine bird that often stays hidden under thick ground cover, but can be distinguished by its sweet, wrenlike song. Lincoln's sparrow i ...

, 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. The species is common across much of temperate North America and in summer it ranges far into the Arctic. It is a variable species, much ...

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 {{Taxonbar, from=Q1425706 Birds of the Americas Songbirds