Morelet's seedeater (''Sporophila morelleti'') is a

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 generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the typical

seedeater {{No footnotes, date=October 2023 The seedeaters are a form taxon of seed-eating passerine birds with a distinctively conical bill. Most are Central America, Central and South American birds that were formerly placed in the American sparrow fam ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Sporophila ''Sporophila'' is a genus of Neotropical birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. The genus now includes the six seed finches that were previously placed in the genus ''Oryzoborus''. They are relatively small with stubby, conical bills adapted fo ...

''.

Taxonomy

This species was formerly considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

with the cinnamon-rumped seedeater (''Sporophila torqueola''), with the combined species known as white-collared seedeater. However, with the discovery that cinnamon-rumped and Morelet's are deeply divergent from one another genetically, don't intergrade, and aren't even each other's closest relatives within the genus, they are now treated as separate species.

Distribution and habitat

It ranges from a small area along the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

near San Ignacio, Texas in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

south through eastern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

. It mainly inhabits

tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The biome is dominated by grass and/or shrubs located in semi-arid to semi- humid climate regions of subtropical and ...

but can also be found in pastures, arable land, and heavily degraded former forests.

Foraging

The Morelet's seedeater eats mainly seeds and insects, and occasionally berries. It often forages on herbaceous plants, and less often on the ground. In captivity, it drinks and bathes often, but in the wild no drinking was observed, even though more than 300 hours of field notes were taken.

References

* Azpiroz AB. (2003). ''First records of the White-collared Seedeater (Sporophila zelichi) for Uruguay''. Ornitologia Neotropical. vol 14, no 1. p. 117–119. * Bencke GA. (2004). ''The seedeater Sporophila zelichi observed in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil''. Ararajuba. vol 12, no 2. p. 170–171. * Eitniear JC. (1997). ''White collared seedeater: Sporophila torqueola''. Birds of North America. vol 0, no 278. p. 1-12. * Eitniear JC. (2004). ''Diet of the white-collared seedeater Sporophila torqueola (Passeriformes: Emberizidae) in Texas''. Texas Journal of Science. vol 56, no 1. p. 77–81. * Woodin MC, Skoruppa MK, Blacklock GW & Hickman GC. (1999). ''Discovery of a second population of white-collared seedeaters, Sporophila torqueola (Passeriformes: Emberizidae) along the Rio Grande of Texas''. Southwestern Naturalist. vol 44, no 4. p. 535–538. Sporophila Birds of El Salvador Birds of Central America Birds of Belize Birds of Guatemala Birds of Nicaragua Birds of Panama Birds of Mexico Birds of the Rio Grande valleys Birds described in 1850 Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte {{Thraupidae-stub

Taxonomy

Distribution and habitat

Foraging

References

Further reading

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