Emberiza

The buntings are a special group of birds from the Old World. They belong to a family called Emberizidae and are part of the genus Emberiza. This family has 44 different species of birds. These birds mainly eat seeds and have short, strong, cone-shaped beaks that help them crack open seeds easily. You can find many kinds of buntings in different parts of the world, each with its own unique look and habits.

Taxonomy

The family Emberizidae used to include more birds, but scientists found that these birds were better grouped into different families. Now, the genus Emberiza is the only one in the family Emberizidae. This genus was named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The type species for this genus is the yellowhammer.

In 2008, a study showed that three species previously in their own genera are now part of Emberiza. These are the crested bunting, the slaty bunting, and the corn bunting. Another study in 2019 found that buntings are closely related to longspurs and snow buntings in the family Calcariidae.

Some scientists suggested splitting the genus Emberiza into several smaller genera, but this idea was not accepted by other bird experts. Birds in the New World genus Passerina also have "bunting" in their names, but they belong to the family Cardinalidae.

The Emberizidae family has four main groups. Most birds in Clade I are from Africa, while those in Clades II to IV are from Palearctic regions. The family tree of these birds was studied in 2021, but the positions of two African species, the brown-rumped bunting and Vincent's bunting, were not determined.

List of species

The genus has 44 different kinds of birds.

Some birds from long ago that scientists have found include:

• † Long-legged bunting (Emberiza alcoveri) (Late Quaternary)
• † Emberiza shaamarica (Late Pliocene of Central Asia)
• † Emberiza polgardiensis (Upper Miocene of Hungary)
• † Emberiza media (Pliocene of Hungary)
• † Emberiza parva (Pliocene of Hungary)
• †Emberiza gaspariskii (Pliocene of Hungary)
• †Emberiza bartoki (Middle Miocene of Hungary) (Nomen dubium)

Emberiza pannonica from the upper Miocene of Hungary was once thought to be part of this group, but it was later found to belong to the Muscicapidae family.

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Crested bunting	Emberiza lathami	Southeast Asia.
	Slaty bunting	Emberiza siemsseni	China.
	Corn bunting	Emberiza calandra	Western Europe and North Africa across to northwestern China.
	Yellowhammer	Emberiza citrinella	southeast England and most of Europe east to the northwestern corner of Russia and western Ukraine.
	Pine bunting	Emberiza leucocephalos	Asia
	Rock bunting	Emberiza cia	northwest Africa, southern Europe east to central Asia, and the Himalayas
	Godlewski's bunting	Emberiza godlewskii	China, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Russia.
	Meadow bunting	Emberiza cioides	southern Siberia, northern and eastern China, eastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan.
	White-capped bunting	Emberiza stewarti	Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
	Jankowski's bunting	Emberiza jankowskii	Russian Far East, Manchuria and far northeastern Korea
	Grey-necked bunting	Emberiza buchanani	Caspian Sea to the Altai Mountains in Central Asia
	Cinereous bunting	Emberiza cineracea	southern Turkey and southern Iran
	Ortolan bunting	Emberiza hortulana	European countries and western Asia
	Cretzschmar's bunting	Emberiza caesia	Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and the Levant.
	Cirl bunting	Emberiza cirlus	southern Europe, on the Mediterranean islands and in north Africa
	Striolated bunting	Emberiza striolata	Chad, east through south-west Asia to north-western India, Africa
	House bunting	Emberiza sahari	northwestern Africa from Morocco south to Mali and east to Chad.
	Lark-like bunting	Emberiza impetuani	Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
	Cinnamon-breasted bunting	Emberiza tahapisi	mainland sub-Saharan Africa
	Gosling's bunting	Emberiza goslingi	Mauritania and Senegal to south-western Sudan and north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
	Socotra bunting	Emberiza socotrana	Yemen
	Cape bunting	Emberiza capensis	southern Africa from south-western Angola, eastern Zambia, Zimbabwe and southern Tanzania to the Cape.
	Tristram's bunting	Emberiza tristrami	eastern Manchuria and the Russian Far East and winters in central and southern China.
	Chestnut-eared bunting	Emberiza fucata	the Himalayas locally across China to south-eastern Siberia, Korea and northern Japan
	Little bunting	Emberiza pusilla	north-east of Europe and northern Eurosiberia to the Russian Far East and northern India, southern China and the northern parts of south-east Asia.
	Yellow-browed bunting	Emberiza chrysophrys	eastern Siberia, China
	Rustic bunting	Emberiza rustica	south-east Asia, Japan, Korea, and eastern China.
	Yellow-throated bunting	Emberiza elegans	China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Russia, and Taiwan.
	Yellow-breasted bunting	Emberiza aureola	Finland to Bering Sea migrating to Indochina
	Somali bunting	Emberiza poliopleura	Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda
	Golden-breasted bunting	Emberiza flaviventris	Africa south of the Sahara
	Brown-rumped bunting	Emberiza affinis	Senegal to Sudan and Uganda
	Cabanis's bunting	Emberiza cabanisi	sub-Saharan Africa
	Chestnut bunting	Emberiza rutila	Siberia, northern Mongolia and north-eastern China.
	Tibetan bunting	Emberiza koslowi	Tibet
	Black-headed bunting	Emberiza melanocephala	Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, South Korea and Malaysia
	Red-headed bunting	Emberiza bruniceps	Asia-Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia; Russian Federation (European Russia, Central Asian Russia), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
	Yellow bunting	Emberiza sulphurata	Japan
	Black-faced bunting	Emberiza spodocephala	southern Siberia across to northern China.
	Masked bunting	Emberiza personata	Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and Japan.
	Grey bunting	Emberiza variabilis	Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Kuril Islands and northern Japan
	Pallas's reed bunting	Emberiza pallasi	northeast European Russia, north Kamchatka
	Ochre-rumped bunting	Emberiza yessoensis	eastern Mongolia, northeast China and Ussuriland
	Common reed bunting	Emberiza schoeniclus	Europe