Habitat
Subtropical and tropical dry and moist shrubland, subtropical and tropical seasonally wet / flooded grassland, dry savanna. From sea-level - 2,000 m.
Anguilla, Antigua And Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St Kitts And Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay (B), Venezuela.
Population
Estimated population is 10,000,000 - 99,999,999 (2010).
Blue-black Grassquit (Volatinia) [XC325959]
by Blas Fandi\u00f1o from Tr\u00eas Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil (song)
Blue-black Grassquit (Volatinia jacarina) [XC441033]
by Richard E. Webster from Salto de Agua, Pijijiapan, Chiapas, Mexico (call)
Subspecies
Genus sometimes subsumed in Geospiza, but the two appear entirely unrelated. Recent molecular-genetic data indicate that present genus belongs in the tanager family (Thraupidae) and is basal to a clade that includes Lanio, Tachyphonus and Ramphocelus, among others.
Proposed subspecies atronitens (described from Campeche, in south-eastern Mexico) is synonymized with splendens.
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
splendens (Vieillot, 1817) - Mexico (southern from southern Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, southern Tamaulipas and eastern San Luis Potosí) and Belize south through most of Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and the Amazon Basin. Also Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada.
peruviensis (Peale, 1849) - Western Ecuador, western Peru and north-western Chile.
jacarina (Linnaeus, 1766) - Southern and eastern Brazil (southern from Mato Grosso and Maranhío) south to south-eastern Peru, eastern Bolivia, Paraguay and northern Argentina (south to Mendoza, Córdoba and northern Buenos Aires).