Family PASSERIDAE Rafinesque, 1815

Museums

Regional Maps

• Passeridae Rafinesque, C.S. 1815. Analyse de la nature, ou tableau de l'univers et des corps organises. Palermo (Italy) : Privately Published 224 pp. [Date published April to July].

  Type genus:

   Passer Brisson, 1760.

Introduction

Sparrows occur naturally only in Eurasia and Africa, but have been introduced internationally. Of the 40 species, in 11 genera, two species have been introduced successfully to Australasia — the House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, P. montanus (Dickinson 2003). Of these, the former has been most successful and is well established in all States and Territories with the exception of Western Australia where new arrivals are selectively removed; P. montanus has established in Victoria and New South Wales. Occasional birds, probably of Oriental origin, have been reported from the region of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

The family is terrestrial in many aspects with many also spending proportionally large periods in an arboreal environment. Feeding is done principally on the ground the birds gleaning, and probing as granivores. Invertebrates are also part of their diet, such invertebrates are taken by short hawking sessions or by hovering and pecking. Feeding activities about human dwellings are well documented.

These small birds are gregarious, often being found in large feeding flocks; at other times they occur in small parties, in pairs or as individuals. They are residents with local movements being restricted by food availability. Sparrows frequent habitats as widely diverse as human habitation, woodlands, and tropical and temperate eucalypt woodlands; in essence, they follow human development and have been encountered in isolated habitation.

Nests are untidy domed structures placed within building cavities. These are constructed of grasses and lined with finer grasses, feathers and other fine materials including man-made fabrics. Eggs, numbering up to eight per clutch, may be of a greyish blue-green or whitish cream base decorated with an overlay of spots and dots of darker browns and greys — as a cap or overall.

Diagnosis

'Structurally, the humeral fossa is completely double (after Bock 1962), and the ectethmoid foramen is often a long slit and not consistently doubled as in grass finches. Sparrows also have much reduced medial palatine shelves and thickened maxillo-palatine processes, massive and compoundly crested zygomatic processes, and tooth-like projections on the mandibular angle; such traits may be adapted to seed eating independently of those in weaver- and grass- finches (Bock & Morony 1978). The most distinct adaptation in this respect is a unique seed cup at the tip of the tongue supported by a new bone, the preglossale, and an enlarged M. paraglossus in association (Bock & Morony l.c.).' (Schodde & Mason 1999)

Diagnosis References

Bock, W.J. 1962. The pneumatic fossa of the humerus in the Passeres. Auk 79: 425-443

Bock, W.J. & Morony, J.J. 1978. Relationships of the passerine finches (Passeriformes: Passeridae). Bonner Zoologische Beiträge 29: 122-147

History of changes