Yellow-eyed Junco

About the Yellow-eyed Junco

The yellow-eyed junco (Junco phaeonotus) is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae, the New World sparrows. It is found from the southwestern United States to Guatemala. The yellow-eyed junco was formally described in 1831 by the German naturalist Johann Georg Wagler from a specimen collected in Mexico. He introduced a new genus, Junco, and coined the binomial Junco phaeonotus. The genus name is from Latin iuncus meaning "rush". The specific epithet combines the Ancient Greek phaios meaning "dusky" or "brown" with -nōtos meaning "-backed".

The yellow-eyed junco has these four subspecies: J. p. palliatus Ridgway, 1885 J. p. phaeonotus Wagler, 1831 J. p. fulvescens Nelson, 1897 J. p. alticola Salvin, 1863 Within the species the Clements taxonomy groups J. p. palliatus and J. p. phaeonotus as the "yellow-eyed junco (Mexican)". It calls J. p. fulvescens the "yellow-eyed junco (Chiapas)" and J. p. alticola the "yellow-eyed junco (Guatemalan)". The American Ornithological Society recognizes the same three-way subdivision of the species.

What is now Baird's junco (Junco bairdi) was previously considered a subspecies of the yellow-eyed junco. Following... Wikipedia →