Carpospiza

Carpospiza is a genus of small Old World sparrows with one species, the pale rockfinch or pale rock sparrow, Carpospiza brachydactyla, which lives in the Middle East and Central Asia. Its classification has been unsettled: some authorities place the bird in the genus Petronia, and others have grouped it with the finches because of similarities in behaviour and form, although the anatomy of its tongue shows the typical features of a sparrow. The species ranges from eastern Turkey to Afghanistan and south into the Arabian Peninsula and northern Africa as far as Ethiopia, in subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and temperate grassland. Its breeding is tied to habitat, temperature and the abundance of grasshoppers and beetles, and growing villages and cultivation threaten its numbers. Since a large wintering flock was found in the Banni grasslands of Gujarat in 2012, it has also been recorded in several other Indian states, though it is easily overlooked next to the yellow-throated sparrow.