Yellow-browed sparrow
| Yellow-browed sparrow | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Adult, Los Llanos, Venezuela | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Emberizidae |
| Genus: | Ammodramus |
| Species: | A. aurifrons |
| Binomial name | |
|
Ammodramus aurifrons (Spix, 1825) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
|
The yellow-browed sparrow (Ammodramus aurifrons) is a species of bird in the family Emberizidae. First described by Johann Baptist von Spix in 1825, this American sparrow is found across much of the Amazon basin in South America. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, pastureland, and heavily degraded former forest.
When Johann Baptist von Spix first described the yellow-browed sparrow in 1825, he put it in the now-defunct genus Tanagra, believing it to be a tanager. The classification error was soon recognized, and the species was moved first to the genus Ammodramus, then to Myospiza—a genus Robert Ridgway created in 1898 for this and the closely related grassland sparrow. Most taxonomists now Myospiza into Ammodramus.DNA analysis indicates that the yellow-browed sparrow is a sister species to the grassland sparrow, and that these two species make a sister group with the grasshopper sparrow; these three are genetically distinct from the other Ammodramus sparrows. The yellow-browed sparrow has four subspecies, which differ primarily in the extent of yellow on the face and the amount of streaking on the upperparts and crown:
The yellow-browed sparrow is one of nine sparrows in the genus Ammodramus, a name which means "desert runner" or "desert racer" (from the Greek ammos, meaning "desert" and -dromos, meaning "-racer" or "-runner"). The species name aurifrons is a combination of the Latin words auri, meaning "gold" and frons, meaning "forehead" or "front".
...
Wikipedia