Geositta is a genus of passerine birds in the ovenbird family, Furnariidae. They are known as
miners (not to be confused with the unrelated miners,
Manorina, of Australia) due to the tunnels they dig for nesting. There are 11 species including the campo miner (
Geositta poeciloptera) which was formerly classified in a genus of its own,
Geobates. They inhabit open country in South America, particularly the Andean and Patagonian regions. They are ground-dwelling birds, somewhat resembling the larks and wheatears of other continents. They are mostly drab brown in coloration and often have a fairly long and slender bill.
Taxonomy: The genus
Geositta was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William Swainson to accommodate a single species,
Geositta anthoides which is therefore the type species by monotypy. Swainson formally described the type species in the following year in his
Animals in Menageries. The name
Geositta anthoides is considered as a junior synonym of
Alauda fissirostris which had been described in 1835 by the German naturalist Heinrich von Kittlitz. The taxon is now treated as a subspecies of the common miner with the trinomial name
Geositta cunicularia fissirostris. The genus name
Geositta combines the Ancient Greek γεω-/
geō- meaning "ground-" or "earth-" with the genus
Sitta that had been introduced for the Eurasian nuthatch in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus.
The following cladogram showing the relationship between the species is based on a large molecular phylogenetic study of the suboscines by Michael Harvey and collaborators that was published in 2020.
Species list: The genus contains 11 species:
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|
| 120px]] | Geositta peruviana | Coastal miner | Peru |
| 120px]] | Geositta cunicularia | Common miner | Puna grassland, coastal Peru and Chile;
Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and South Region (Brazil) |
| 120px]] | Geositta tenuirostris | Slender-billed miner | Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru |
| 120px]] | Geositta antarctica | Short-billed miner | Santa Cruz Province and Tierra del Fuego |
| 120px]] | Geositta isabellina | Creamy-rumped miner | Argentina and Chile |
| 120px]] | Geositta saxicolina | Dark-winged miner | Peru |
| 120px]] | Geositta maritima | Greyish miner | Chile and Peru |
| 120px]] | Geositta punensis | Puna miner | Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru |
| 120px]] | Geositta rufipennis | Rufous-banded miner | Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile |
| 120px]] | Geositta poeciloptera | Campo miner | Brazil and far northeastern Bolivia |
| 120px]] | Geositta crassirostris | Thick-billed miner | Peru |