Amphispiza
The black-throated sparrow is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae, the New World sparrows. It is found in Mexico and the United States.

Elaine R. Wilson · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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- Sits inside
- PasserellidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 199 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Amphispiza 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
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Amphispiza and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Amphispiza and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
184 taxa- Antigone canadensis3 sites
- Accipiter cooperii2 sites
- Anas crecca carolinensis2 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos2 sites
- Anser caerulescens2 sites
- Aphelocoma californica2 sites
- Aquila chrysaetos2 sites
- Ardea herodias2 sites
- Asio otus wilsonianus2 sites
- Athene cunicularia2 sites
- Branta canadensis2 sites
- Branta minuscula2 sites
- Buteo2 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis2 sites
- Buteo regalis2 sites
- Buteo swainsoni2 sites
- Callipepla californica2 sites
- Cathartes aura2 sites
- Ciconia maltha2 sites
- Circus hudsonius2 sites
- Colaptes auratus cafer2 sites
- Coragyps occidentalis2 sites
- Corvus corax2 sites
- Cygnus columbianus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Amphispiza, 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
3 references- The fossil Birds of California2
- Records of fringillids from the Pleistocene of Rancho La Brea1
- Fossil fringillids from Rancho la Brea1
Each of the 4 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 content2
Picture of Amphispiza
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Elaine R. Wilson
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Amphispiza bilineata grisea · KU:KUO:48474
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 itPasserellidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Coues 1874