Endangered
Worthen's Sparrow
Spizella wortheni
Worthen's sparrow is a American sparrow that is endemic to northeastern Mexico.
Appearance
It is identifiable by its distinctive head pattern. It has a grey head with a rufous crown, a brown postocular stripe and a pink bill. It has grey-brown upperparts, with dark brown streaks.
Worthen's Sparrow can range in length from 12.5 to 14 cm.
It was first described by Robert Ridgway in 1884 and named for the American naturalist Charles K.
Range and habitat
Worthen's sparrow is endemic to northeastern Mexico and currently occupies a 25 km2 range. Populations formerly occurred in Zacatecas, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. Even so, presently it is only known to occur from southeastern Coahuila to western Nuevo León. For nesting and cover, it usually inhabits low, dense shrubs.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
Perching birds hold with three toes forward and one back. A named island starling or leafbird in this catalog is a wild population, not a cage type.
In crisis
This small bird has been listed as endangered by the IUCN since 1994. The major threat to this species is habitat destruction. The program, known as the Mexican Grasslands Appeal, seeks to purchase over 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of prime grassland habitat to protect and save this last great North American grassland.
Worthen's Sparrow is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Worthen's Sparrow, Wikidata item Q903920. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
