Sudan Golden Sparrow

About the Sudan Golden Sparrow

The Sudan golden sparrow (Passer luteus) is a small species of bird in the sparrow family found in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a famous cage bird, and in aviculture, it is known as the golden song sparrow. The Arabian golden sparrow and this species are sometimes considered one species, as the "golden sparrow".

This species was first described by Martin Lichtenstein in 1823, as Fringilla lutea, from a specimen collected at Dongola, Sudan. Since then it has generally been placed in the genus Passer. The species name luteus means saffron yellow in Latin.

The two golden sparrows are very similar, and have often been treated as the same species. Both are similar to the chestnut sparrow, and all three may once have been only clinally different. The male Arabian golden sparrow is almost entirely gold-coloured, the male chestnut sparrow is mostly chestnut, and the male Sudan golden sparrow is intermediate. British ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen considered even the chestnut sparrow to be conspecific, though the range of the Sudan golden sparrow overlaps with that of the chestnut sparrow without any known interbreeding in a small area of Darfur. The three species... Wikipedia →