Pipilo

Pipilo
	Spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Passerellidae
Genus:	Pipilo; Vieillot, 1816
Type species
	Fringilla erythrophthalma; Linnaeus, 1758
Species
	4, see text

Pipilo is a genus of birds in the American sparrow family Passerellidae. It is one of two genera containing birds with the common name towhee.

Taxonomy

The genus Pipilo was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with the eastern towhee as the type species.^[2]^[3] The name Pipilo is Neo-Latin for "bunting" from pipilare "to chirp".^[4] Within the New World sparrow family Passerellidae, the genus Pipilo is sister to the larger genus Atlapetes.^[5]

The genus contains five species:^[6]

Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
Pipilo chlorurus	Green-tailed towhee	interior Western United States, with a winter range in Mexico and the southern edge of the Southwestern United States
Pipilo ocai	Collared towhee	Mexico
Pipilo erythrophthalmus	Eastern towhee	eastern North America
Pipilo maculatus	Spotted towhee	across western North America
Pipilo naufragus	Bermuda towhee	Bermuda; extinct

^ "Passerellidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-16.
^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 32.
^ Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1970). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 13. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 168.
^ Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
^ Bryson, R.W.; Faircloth, B.C.; Tsai, W.L.E.; McCormack, J.E.; Klicka, J. (2016). "Target enrichment of thousands of ultraconserved elements sheds new light on early relationships within New World sparrows (Aves: Passerellidae)". The Auk. 133 (3): 451–458. doi:10.1642/AUK-16-26.1.
^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (2020). "New World Sparrows, Bush Tanagers". IOC World Bird List Version 10.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 12 October 2020.