Yellowish Pipit

About the Yellowish Pipit

The yellowish pipit (Anthus chii) is a species of bird in the family Motacillidae, the wagtails and pipits. It is found in Panama and in every mainland South American country except Ecuador and Chile. The yellowish pipit was described in 1818 with the binomial Anthus chii. For much of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first it bore the binomial Anthus lutescens. A paper published in 2021 showed that by the principle of priority its original binomial was correct and taxonomic systems soon made the change.

The yellowish pipit has two subspecies, the nominate A. c. chii (Vieillot, 1818) and A. c. parvus (Lawrence, 1865). What is now the Peruvian pipit (A. peruvianus) was previously treated as a third subspecies. It was separated based on a study published in 2018.

The yellowish pipit is one of the smallest members of genus Anthus, and is unusually long-legged and short-tailed. It is 10.5 to 14 cm (4.1 to 5.5 in) long and weighs 13 to 18 g (0.46 to 0.63 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. In fresh plumage adults have a dark brown head with a very pale supercilium and a thin white eye-ring. Their upperparts are dark brown with buff... Wikipedia →