Zonotrichia leucophrys
The white-crowned sparrow is a species of passerine bird native to North America. A medium-sized member of the New World sparrow family, this species is marked by a grey face and black and white streaking on the upper head. It breeds in brushy areas in the taiga and tundra of the northernmost parts of the continent and in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific coast. While southerly populations in the Rocky Mountains and coast are largely resident, the breeding populations of the northerly part of its range are migratory and can be found as wintering or passage visitors through most of North America south to central Mexico.

Wolfgang Wander · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- white-crowned sparrowPBDB
- Sits inside
- ZonotrichiaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 27.1 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
10 occurrences of Zonotrichia leucophrys on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
10 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Zonotrichia leucophrys and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Zonotrichia leucophrys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
363 taxa- Melospiza melodia8 sites
- Falco sparverius7 sites
- Chondestes grammacus6 sites
- Junco hyemalis6 sites
- Passerculus sandwichensis6 sites
- Tyto alba6 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus5 sites
- Colaptes auratus5 sites
- Corvus corax5 sites
- Eremophila alpestris5 sites
- Ptychoramphus aleuticus5 sites
- Zenaida macroura5 sites
- Athene cunicularia4 sites
- Buteo4 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis4 sites
- Cepphus columba4 sites
- Chendytes lawi4 sites
- Larus californicus4 sites
- Larus occidentalis4 sites
- Oreothlypis celata4 sites
- Passerella iliaca4 sites
- Pheucticus melanocephalus4 sites
- Pipilo maculatus4 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Zonotrichia leucophrys, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits3
- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula3
- The early and middle Pleistocene avifauna from Porcupine Cave1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California1
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa1
- Records of fringillids from the Pleistocene of Rancho La Brea1
Each of the 10 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Zonotrichia leucophrys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Wolfgang Wander
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Zonotrichia leucophrys was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itZonotrichia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Forster 1772)