American sparrow


American sparrows are a group of mainly New World passerine birds, forming the family Passerellidae. American sparrows are seed-eating birds with conical bills, brown or gray in color, and many species have distinctive head patterns.
Although they share the name sparrow, American sparrows are more closely related to Old World buntings than they are to the Old World sparrows. American sparrows are also similar in both appearance and habit to finches, 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 analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences published in 2015 found that the Passerellidae formed a monophyletic 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 in 1851.
The International Ornithological Congress recognizes these 136 species in the family, distributed among 27 genera in the following sequence. One extinct species, the Bermuda towhee, is included. The North American and South American classification committees of the American Ornithological Society do not recognize all of these species, use some different common names, and assign other species to different genera. The AOS also organizes the list in a different sequence.
Genus Calamospiza
Genus Passerella
Genus Melospiza
Genus Zonotrichia
Genus Junco
Genus Passerculus
Genus Ammodramus
Genus Xenospiza
Genus Spizelloides
Genus Spizella
Genus Pooecetes
Genus Chondestes
Genus Amphispiza
Genus Artemisiospiza
Genus Rhynchospiza
Genus Peucaea
Genus Aimophila
Genus Torreornis
Genus Oriturus
Genus Pipilo
Genus Melozone
Genus Arremonops
Genus Arremon
Genus Pezopetes
Genus Atlapetes
Genus Oreothraupis
Genus Chlorospingus