Emberizoidea is a superfamily of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

s that are referred to as the New World nine-primaried oscines that includes majority of

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

s which are exclusive to the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

. Nearly 892 species belong to this group as it includes buntings, American sparrows, the

New World blackbird Icterids () or New World blackbirds make up a family, the Icteridae (), of small to medium-sized, often colorful, New World passerine birds. Most species have black as a predominant plumage color, often enlivened by yellow, orange, or red. The ...

s, the parulid warblers, the cardinals, and the

tanager The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12% of the Neotropica ...

s. The group originated after a rapid speciation event in North America after arriving from

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

via Bering strait during the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

epoch. Two groups from within the emberizoids diversified further in the Neotropics where one clade comprising several small Caribbean endemic species and the other, the tanager-cardinal group, in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. Another two families, the

Emberizidae The buntings are a group of Old World passerine birds forming the genus ''Emberiza'', the only genus in the family Emberizidae. The family contains 45 species. They are seed-eating birds with stubby, conical bills. Taxonomy The family Emberizid ...

(buntings) and the

Calcariidae Calcariidae is a small family of passerine birds. It includes longspurs and snow buntings. There are six species in three genera worldwide, found mainly in North America and Eurasia. They are migratory and can live in a variety of habitats includ ...

(longspurs and snow buntings), return to Eurasia and colonized. The interrelationships among the emberizoids has been a source of contention as several genera have been shifted around in many phylogenetic studies. The cladogram of the emberizoids shown below is primarily based on the analysis of Carl Oliveros and colleagues published in 2019. The study considered

Spindalidae ''Spindalis'' is a genus consisting of four non-migratory species of bird. It is the only genus in the family Spindalidae. The species are mostly endemic to the West Indies; exceptions include populations of western spindalises on Cozumel Island ...

and

Nesospingidae The Puerto Rican tanager (''Nesospingus speculiferus'') is a small passerine bird endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. It is the only member of the genus ''Nesospingus'' and has historically been placed in the tanager family, but recent st ...

to both be part of Phaenicophilidae, and

Icteriidae The yellow-breasted chat (''Icteria virens'') is a large songbird found in North America, and is the only member of the family Icteriidae. It was once a member of the New World warbler family, but in 2017, the American Ornithological Society move ...

as being a part of

Icteridae Icterids () or New World blackbirds make up a family, the Icteridae (), of small to medium-sized, often colorful, New World passerine birds. Most species have black as a predominant plumage color, often enlivened by yellow, orange, or red. Th ...

, but they are shown as distinct in this tree. In addition, while Teretistridae was not analyzed in the study, previous studies indicated them as being allied with Zeledoniidae.

References

Notes

Passeroidea Bird superfamilies {{Passeroidea-stub