The pewees are a genus, Contopus, of small to medium-sized insect-eating birds in the Tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae.
These birds are known as pewees, from the call of one of the more common members of this vocal group. They are generally charcoal-grey birds with wing bars that live in wooded areas.
The genus Contopus was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1855 with Muscicapa virens Linnaeus, the eastern wood pewee, as the type species.[1] [2] The name of the genus combines the Ancient Greek words kontos "pole" or "shaft" and pous "foot".[3] A large molecular phylogenetic study of the Tyrannidae that was published in 2020 found that Contopus was sister to the genus Mitrephanes containing the two tufted flycatchers.[4]
The genus contains 16 species:[5]
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contopus cooperi | Canada, Alaska and the northeastern and western United States | ||
| Contopus pertinax | central and southern Mexico south through Costa Rica and Nicaragua | ||
| Contopus lugubris | Talamancan montane forests of Costa Rica and western Panama. | ||
| Contopus fumigatus | Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela | ||
| Contopus ochraceus | Costa Rica and western Panama | ||
| Contopus sordidulus | western North America | ||
| Contopus virens | Central America and in the Andes region of northern South America. | ||
| Contopus cinereus | southern Brazil and Paraguay south to Argentina. | ||
| Contopus bogotensis | southeastern Mexico to northern South America from northern Colombia to northeastern Brazil. | ||
| Contopus punensis | western Ecuador and western Peru. | ||
| Contopus albogularis | Brazil, French Guiana, and Suriname. | ||
| Contopus nigrescens | Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, and Peru. | ||
| Contopus caribaeus | Cuba and the northern Bahamas. | ||
| Contopus hispaniolensis | island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. | ||
| Contopus pallidus | Jamaica | ||
| Contopus latirostris | Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, and Saint Lucia | ||
