''Pipilo'' is a genus of birds in the American sparrow 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 ...

. It is one of two genera containing birds with the common name

towhee A towhee is any one of a number of species of birds in the genus ''Pipilo'' or ''Melozone'' within the family Passerellidae (which also includes American sparrows, and juncos). Towhees typically have longer tails than other Passerellidae. Most ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Pipilo'' was introduced 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 1816 with the

eastern towhee The eastern towhee (''Pipilo erythrophthalmus'') is a large New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been under debate in recent decades, and formerly this bird and the spotted towhee were considered a single species, the rufous-sided t ...

as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The name ''Pipilo'' is

New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

for "bunting" from ''pipilare'' "to chirp". Within the New World sparrow family

, the genus ''Pipilo'' is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

to the larger genus ''

Atlapetes ''Atlapetes'' is a genus of birds in the New World sparrow family Passerellidae. The species are mainly found in montane forest from Mexico to northwestern Argentina. Taxonomy and species The genus ''Atlapetes'' was introduced in 1831 by the Ger ...

''.

Species

The genus contains five species:

References

External links

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Towhee videos, photos and sounds
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Taxonbar, from=Q613202 Bird genera American sparrows Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot