Emberizoidea

Emberizoidea is a superfamily of passerines that are referred to as the New World nine-primaried oscines that includes majority of endemics which are exclusive to the New World. Nearly 892 species belong to this group as it includes buntings, American sparrows, the New World blackbirds, the parulid warblers, the cardinals, and the tanagers.

Emberizoids Temporal range: Miocene-Holocene, 15–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)
Golden-chevroned tanager (Thraupis ornata)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Infraorder:	Passerida
Superfamily:	Emberizoidea Vigors, 1831
Type species
Emberiza citrinella Linnaeus, 1758
Families
Calcariidae Rhodinocichlidae Emberizidae Passerellidae Calyptophilidae Phaenicophilidae Nesospingidae Spindalidae Zeledoniidae Teretistridae Icteriidae Icteridae Parulidae Mitrospingidae Cardinalidae Thraupidae

Evolution

The group originated after a rapid speciation event in North America after arriving from Eurasia via the Bering Strait during the Miocene epoch. Two groups from within the emberizoids diversified further in the Neotropics, where one clade comprised several small Caribbean endemic species and the other, the tanager-cardinal group, in South America. Another two families, the Emberizidae (buntings) and the Calcariidae (longspurs and snow buntings), returned to Eurasia and colonized.^[1]

Taxonomy

The interrelationships among the emberizoids has been a source of contention as several genera have been shifted around in many phylogenetic studies. The cladogram of the emberizoids shown below is based on the analysis of Carl Oliveros and colleagues published in 2019.^[2][a]

	Fringillidae Emberizoidea Rhodinocichlidae Calcariidae Emberizidae Cardinalidae Mitrospingidae Thraupidae Passerellidae Parulidae Icteriidae Icteridae Calyptophilidae Zeledoniidae Spindalidae Nesospingidae Phaenicophilidae

The Oliveros at al (2019) study considered Spindalidae and Nesospingidae to both be part of Phaenicophilidae, and Icteriidae as being a part of Icteridae, but they are shown as distinct in this tree.^[2] In addition, while Teretistridae was not analyzed in that study, previous studies recovered them allied with Icteridae or Zeledoniidae.^[5][1]