Rufous-crowned Sparrow - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

This bird belongs to the family Emberizidae, which consists of the American sparrows and Eurasian buntings. The American sparrows are seed-eating New World birds with conical bills, brown or gray plumage, and distinctive head patterns. Birds in the genus Aimophila tend to be medium-sized at 5 to 8 inches (12.704083872426 to 20.521981640072 cm) in length, live in arid scrubland, have long bills and tails in proportion to their body size as well as short, rounded wings, and build cup-shaped nests.

The Rufous-crowned Sparrow was described in 1852 by American ornithologist John Cassin as Ammodramus ruficeps. It has also been described as belonging to the genus Peucaea, which contains several sparrows in the genus Aimophila that share characteristics, such as a larger bill and a patch of yellow under the bend of the wing, that other members of the genus do not. However, splitting the Peucaea sparrows into a separate genus is not generally recognized. A 2008 phylogenetic analysis of the genus Aimophila divided it into four genera, with the Rufous-crowned Sparrow and its two closest relatives, the Oaxaca Sparrow and Rusty Sparrow, being maintained as the genus Aimophila. In addition, this study suggested that the Rufous-crowned Sparrow may be more closely related to the brown towhees of the genus Pipilo than the other members of the historical genus Aimophila.

The derivation of the current genus name, Aimophila, is from the Greek aimos/ἀιμος, meaning "thicket", and -philos/-φιλος, meaning "loving". The specific epithet is a literal derivation of the common name, derived from the Latin rufus, meaning "reddish" or "tawny", and -ceps, from caput, meaning "head". The bird is also occasionally referred to colloquially as the Rock Sparrow because of its preference for rocky slopes.