''Arremon'' is a genus of

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s in the family

Passerellidae New World sparrows are a group of mainly New World passerine birds, forming the family Passerellidae. They are seed-eating birds with conical bills, brown or gray in color, and many species have distinctive head patterns. Although they share t ...

. With the exception of the green-striped brushfinch which is endemic to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, all species are found in South America, with a few reaching Central America. These sparrows are found in lowland woodlands and forests where they usually forage on the ground. They have olive or grey upperparts with a black head. Many have a white line above the eye and some have a black band across the breast.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Arremon'' was erected in 1816 by the French ornithologist

Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collecte ...

in his ''Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire'' to accommodate the pectoral sparrow (''Arremon taciturnus''). The name is from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''arrhēmōn'' meaning "silent" or "without speech". The pectoral sparrow had been given the French name "L'Oiseau Silencieux" by the polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent Fr ...

in 1779. The genus contains 20 species. This genus includes species traditionally placed in ''Buarremon'' and ''Lysurus''.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q588866 Bird genera Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Taxonomy articles created by Polbot