Passerina amoena

Hybridizes with P. cyanea where ranges overlap in the Great Plains, but the two species are locally sympatric without interbreeding in the Southwest; they have been regarded as conspecific by a few authors, but are regarded as superspecies by AOU (1998). Baker and Baker (1991) present evidence that indicates low levels of hybridization and introgression with assortative mating.

However, a recent phylogenetic study of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene indicates that these two hybridizing species are not sister taxa at all; instead, P. ameona is most closely related to the much larger Blue Grosbeak (Guiraca caerulea) and P. cyanea is basal to the Passerina-guiraca group (Klicka et al. 2001). Linaria is an invalid generic name for North America buntings (Banks and Browning 1995).

BREEDING: southern British Columbia east to southern Saskatchewan, central North Dakota, and South Dakota, south to southeastern California, northwestern Baja California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, central Arizona, northern New Mexico, western Oklahoma, east to eastern Nebraska, western Kansas, and western Oklahoma. NON-BREEDING: southern Baja California, southern Arizona (scarce), and Chihuahua south to Guerrero and central Veracruz (AOU 1983).