Wikipedia

Wheatear

Not to be confused with Ear of wheat, or the surname Wheater.

The wheatears /ˈhwiːtɪər/ are passerine birds of the genus Oenanthe. They were formerly considered to be members of the thrush family, Turdidae, but are now more commonly placed in the flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. This is an Old World group, but the northern wheatear has established a foothold in eastern Canada and Greenland and in western Canada and Alaska.

Wheatears
Male northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Muscicapidae
Subfamily: Saxicolinae
Genus: Oenanthe
Vieillot, 1816
Type species
Motacilla oenanthe[1]
Linnaeus, 1758
Species

See text

Synonyms

Cercomela

Taxonomy

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The genus Oenanthe was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with Oenanthe leucura, the black wheatear, as the type species.[2][3] The genus formerly included fewer species but molecular phylogenetic studies of birds in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae found that the genus Cercomela was polyphyletic with five species, including the type species C. melanura, phylogenetically nested within the genus Oenanthe.[4][5] This implied that Cercomela and Oenanthe were synonyms. The genus Oenanthe (Vieillot, 1816) has taxonomic priority over Cercomela (Bonaparte, 1856) making Cercomela a junior synonym.[4][6] The genus name Oenanthe was used by Aristotle for an unidentified bird. The word is derived from the Greek oenoē meaning "vine" and anthos meaning "bloom". The bird was associated with the grape harvest season.[7]

The name "wheatear" is not derived from "wheat" or any sense of "ear", but is a folk etymology of "white" and "arse", referring to the prominent white rump found in most species.[8]

Description

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Most species have characteristic black and white or red and white markings on their rumps or their long tails. Most species are strongly sexually dimorphic; only the male has the striking plumage patterns characteristic of the genus, though the females share the white or red rump patches.

Species list

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The genus contains 33 species:[9]

Image Common Name Scientific Name Distribution
  Northern wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe Holarctic ; winters to Sub-Saharan Africa
  Atlas wheatear Oenanthe seebohmi Maghreb ; winters in western Sahel
  Capped wheatear Oenanthe pileata southern Sub-Saharan Africa
- Buff-breasted wheatear Oenanthe bottae Asir Mountains
  Rusty-breasted wheatear Oenanthe Renata Ethiopian Highlands
  Isabelline wheatear Oenanthe isabellina central-southern Eurasia ; winters to Sub-Saharan, Africa, Middle east and South Asia
- Heuglin's wheatear Oenanthe heuglinii northern Sub-Saharan Africa
  Hooded wheatear Oenanthe monacha Middle- ast
  Desert wheatear Oenanthe deserti Maghreb and central Asia ; winters to North Africa, Middle East and South Asia
  Western black-eared wheatear Oenanthe hispanica western Mediterranean ; winters to western Sahel
  Pied wheatear Oenanthe pleschanka central Asia ; winters to East Africa
  Eastern black-eared wheatear Oenanthe melanoleuca eastern Mediterranean ; winters to eastern Sahel
  Cyprus wheatear Oenanthe cypraica Cyprus
  White-fronted black chat Oenanthe albifrons Sudan (region)
- Somali wheatear Oenanthe phillipsi Horn of Africa
  Red-rumped wheatear Oenanthe moesta Morocco to Jordan ; partly winters to eastern Saudi Arabia
  Blackstart Oenanthe melanura Sahel and Red Sea region
  Familiar chat Oenanthe familiaris Sub-Saharan Africa
- Brown-tailed rock chat Oenanthe scotocerca Chad, western Sudan and Horn of Africa
- Sombre rock chat Oenanthe dubia montane desert of central Ethiopia
  Brown rock chat Oenanthe fusca northern South Asia
  Variable wheatear Oenanthe picata from eastern Iran and southern Kazakhstan to Indus river ;
winters to UAE and northwestern India
  Finsch's wheatear Oenanthe finschii Anatolia to western Central Asia ; winters to Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
  Maghreb wheatear Oenanthe halophila Maghreb
  Mourning wheatear Oenanthe lugens Middle East
  Basalt wheatear Oenanthe warriae basalt desert of eastern Jordan and southern Syria
  Kurdish wheatear Oenanthe 'xanthoprymna' Kurdistan ; winters to Red Sea and southern Arabian Peninsula
  Red-tailed wheatear Oenanthe chrysopygia Iran and Pakistan ; winters to Arabian peninsula and northwestern South Asia
  White-crowned wheatear Oenanthe leucopyga North Africa and Middle East
  Hume's wheatear Oenanthe albonigra Iran, eastern Oman to Indus valley
  Black wheatear Oenanthe leucura Iberian Peninsula to western Libya and Mauritania
  Arabian wheatear Oenanthe lugentoides Arabian Peninsula
  Abyssinian wheatear Oenanthe lugubrious montane East Africa

Behaviour

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Wheatears are terrestrial insectivorous birds of open, often dry, country. They often nest in rock crevices or disused burrows. Northern species are long-distance migrants, wintering in Africa.

Fossil record

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References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oenanthe (bird).
  1. ^ "Muscicapidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
  2. ^ Mayr, Ernst; Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, eds. (1960). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 10. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 121.
  3. ^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1883) [1816]. Saunders, Howard (ed.). Vieillot's Analyse d'une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire (in French). London. p. 43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ a b Outlaw, R.K.; Voelker, G.; Bowie, R.C.K. (2010). "Shall we chat? Evolutionary relationships in the genus Cercomela (Muscicapidae) and its relation to Oenanthe reveals extensive polyphyly among chats distributed in Africa, India and the Palearctic". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 55 (1): 284–292. Bibcode:2010MolPE..55..284O. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.09.023. PMID 19772925.
  5. ^ Aliabadian, M.; Kaboli, M.; Förschler, M.I.; Nijman, V.; Chamani, A.; Tillier, A.; Prodon, R.; Pasquet, E.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Zuccon, D. (2012). "Convergent evolution of morphological and ecological traits in the open-habitat chat complex (Aves, Muscicapidae: Saxicolinae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 65 (1): 35–45. Bibcode:2012MolPE..65...35A. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2012.05.011. PMID 22634240.
  6. ^ Sangster, George; Collinson, J. Martin; Crochet, Pierre-André; Knox, Alan G.; Parkin, David T.; Votier, Stephen C. (2013). "Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: ninth report". Ibis. 155 (4): 898–907 [903]. doi:10.1111/ibi.12091.
  7. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  8. ^ "Wheatear". Merriam Webster Online. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  9. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2023). "Chats, Old World flycatchers". IOC World Bird List Version 13.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  10. ^ a b Kessler, E. 2013. Neogene songbirds (Aves, Passeriformes) from Hungary. – Hantkeniana, Budapest, 2013, 8: 37–149.
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