Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) - HBW 16, p. 542

Taxonomy: Fringilla hyemalis Linnaeus, 1758, South Carolina, USA.
Molecular data indicate close relationship between this genus and Zonotrichia. Nominate race has hybridized with Zonotrichia albicollis. Recent molecular-genetic studies suggest that genus spread quickly N from Central America in post-glacial period; although morphological divergence high, molecular divergence not so well marked; on the other hand, the farther S in Central America, the older is the lineage, and the more distinctly characterized it is molecularly. Taxonomy of present species complex; races molecularly very close to each other, and more closely allied to N races of J. phaeonotus than to S populations of latter; S races of present species very similar morphologically to J. phaeonotus, and unpublished molecular data suggest that Guadalupe race insularis may be better placed with that species. Races form six groups: “hyemalis group” (nominate, carolinensis, cismontanus), “oreganus group” (oreganus, shufeldti, montanus, thurberi, pinosus, pontilis, townsendi), “caniceps group” (caniceps, dorsalis, mutabilis), and three single-subspecies groups, i.e. “aikeni group”, “insularis group” and “mearnsi group”; these sometimes treated as six separate species, but hybridization occurs among them and several races intergrade with others from different group (cismontanus often considered a hybrid between nominate and “oreganus group”). In the past, race dorsalis sometimes treated as a separate species. Proposed race eumesus (from Blue Mts of Washington) included within shufeldti. Availability of name shufeldti has been disputed, andreplacement name simillima proposed. Sixteen subspecies currently recognized.