Grass wren
The grass wren is a species of passerine bird in the family Troglodytidae. It is widely distributed in central and southern America.
Taxonomy and systematics
The grass wren was described in 1790 by the English ornithologist John Latham and given the binomial name Sylvia platensis. The type locality is Buenos Aires, Argentina. The current genus Cistothorus was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1850.The grass wren and the sedge wren were formerly treated as conspecific. They were split based on the results of a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014. This split was accepted in 2018 by the International Ornithological Committee and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World, in 2019 by the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society, and in 2021 by the AOS North American Classification Committee and the Clements taxonomy. As of 2018 the fourth edition of the Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World had not implemented the split. Taxonomic bodies recognize 17 subspecies of the grass wren.
Description
The grass wren is long. Its upperparts are buffy brown with black and buffy whitish streaks on the back. The wings and tail have dusky bands. Its underparts are mostly buffy.Distribution and habitat
The grass wren is found discontinuously from central Mexico south through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua into Costa Rica, in every mainland South American country except French Guiana and Suriname, and the Falkland Islands.In Colombia and Ecuador, the grass wren inhabits moist grassy and sedgy parts of paramo, clearings, agricultural areas, and interandean valleys. In Brazil it inhabits cerrado, grassland, and marshes.