Pewee

Not to be confused with magpie larks, often called peewees.

The pewees are a genus, Contopus, of small to medium-sized insect-eating birds in the Tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae.

Pewees
Western wood pewee (Contopus sordidulus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Tyrannidae
Genus:	Contopus Cabanis, 1855
Type species
Muscicapa virens Linnaeus, 1766
Species
See text.

These birds are known as pewees, from the call of one of the more common members of this vocal group. They are generally charcoal-grey birds with wing bars that live in wooded areas.

Taxonomy

The genus Contopus was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1855 with Muscicapa virens Linnaeus, the eastern wood pewee, as the type species.^[1][2] The name of the genus combines the Ancient Greek words kontos "pole" or "shaft" and pous "foot".^[3] A large molecular phylogenetic study of the Tyrannidae that was published in 2020 found that Contopus was sister to the genus Mitrephanes containing the two tufted flycatchers.^[4]

The genus contains 16 species:^[5]

Image	Scientific name	Common Name	Distribution
	Contopus cooperi	Olive-sided flycatcher	Canada, Alaska and the northeastern and western United States
	Contopus pertinax	Greater pewee	central and southern Mexico south through Costa Rica and Nicaragua
	Contopus lugubris	Dark pewee	Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama.
	Contopus fumigatus	Smoke-colored pewee	Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela
	Contopus ochraceus	Ochraceous pewee	Costa Rica and western Panama
	Contopus sordidulus	Western wood pewee	western North America
	Contopus virens	Eastern wood pewee	Central America and in the Andes region of northern South America.
	Contopus cinereus	Southern tropical pewee	southern Brazil and Paraguay south to Argentina.
	Contopus bogotensis	Northern tropical pewee	southeastern Mexico to northern South America from northern Colombia to northeastern Brazil.
	Contopus punensis	Tumbes pewee	western Ecuador and western Peru.
	Contopus albogularis	White-throated pewee	Brazil, French Guiana, and Suriname.
	Contopus nigrescens	Blackish pewee	Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, and Peru.
	Contopus caribaeus	Cuban pewee	Cuba and the northern Bahamas.
	Contopus hispaniolensis	Hispaniolan pewee	island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.
	Contopus pallidus	Jamaican pewee	Jamaica
	Contopus latirostris	Lesser Antillean pewee	Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, and Saint Lucia