Cassin's Sparrow

About the Cassin's Sparrow

Cassin's sparrow (Peucaea cassinii) is a medium-sized sparrow. This passerine bird's range is from western Nebraska to north-central Mexico. The first Cassin's sparrow was described in 1852 by Samuel W. Woodhouse from a specimen collected near San Antonio, Texas, and given its species name in honor of John Cassin, a Philadelphia ornithologist. The species was originally known as Zonotrichia cassinii. It was subsequently and variously assigned to the genus Peucaea and eventually to Aimophila around the turn of the century. Much of the confusion seems to have stemmed from a serious lack of knowledge about the anatomy and life history of the species included in the genus.

There have been several substantial treatments of the taxonomy of species within the genus Aimophila and a comparison of the song patterns of Aimophila sparrows, but they have focused primarily on evaluating the evolutionary development of these species in order to determine whether this genus actually consists of an unnatural assemblage of species (actually representing several taxonomic groups or divergent forms). None of these publications called into question the placement of Cassin's sparrow within... Wikipedia →