Passerculus sandwichensis
The Savannah sparrow is a small New World sparrow that is the only member of the genus Passerculus. It is a widespread and abundant species that occupies open grassland habitats in North America.

Cephas · 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
- savannah sparrowPBDB
- Sits inside
- PasserculusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 19.5 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.
8 occurrences of Passerculus sandwichensis 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
8 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holocene1%
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.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Passerculus sandwichensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Passerculus sandwichensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Passerculus sandwichensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
383 taxa- Falco sparverius6 sites
- Zenaida macroura6 sites
- Zonotrichia leucophrys6 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus5 sites
- Athene cunicularia5 sites
- Colaptes auratus5 sites
- Junco hyemalis5 sites
- Melospiza melodia5 sites
- Tyto alba5 sites
- Blarina carolinensis4 sites
- Chondestes grammacus4 sites
- Cryptotis parva4 sites
- Dasypus bellus4 sites
- Megascops asio4 sites
- Molothrus ater4 sites
- Oreothlypis celata4 sites
- Scalopus aquaticus4 sites
- Aves3 sites
- Buteo3 sites
- Cardinalis cardinalis3 sites
- Catharus guttatus3 sites
- Catharus ustulatus3 sites
- Cerorhinca monocerata3 sites
- Colinus virginianus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Passerculus sandwichensis, 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
4 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 late Quaternary bird community of New Providence, Bahamas1
- The Pleistocene avifauna of Arredondo, Florida1
Each of the 8 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Passerculus sandwichensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Cephas
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Passerculus sandwichensis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itPasserculus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1789)