The Olive Sparrow forages on the ground in dense thorn scrub, staying close to cover. In the United States it is limited to southern Texas, and it also occurs in Mexico and Central America.
It is gray overall, with an olive back and brown stripes on the head.
It moves through leaf litter in semiarid thorn scrub, searching for seeds and insects.
It builds a bulky cup-shaped nest of dried grass and other plant material near the ground, with a dome over the top.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.