Colinus
Genus of birds
Colinus is a genus of birds in the New World quail family, Odontophoridae. Members of the genus are commonly known as bobwhites.
01Taxonomy
The genus Colinus was introduced in 1820 by the German naturalist Georg August Goldfuss to accommodate a single species, Perdrix mexicanus, a junior synonym of Tetrao virginianus Linnaeus, 1758, the northern bobwhite, which is the type species by monotypy. The genus name come from the Nahuatl language Zōlin meaning "quail".
02Species
The genus contains four species.
| Common name | Scientific name and subspecies | Range | Size and ecology | IUCN status and estimated population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crested bobwhite | Colinus cristatus (Linnaeus, 1766) |
Size: 22 cm Habitat: open scrubland Diet: |
LC | |
| Spot-bellied bobwhite | Colinus leucopogon (Lesson, 1842) |
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica | Size: 23 cm Habitat: open scrubland Diet: |
LC |
| Yucatan bobwhite, black-throated bobwhite | Colinus nigrogularis (Gould, 1843) |
Size: 22 cm Habitat: henequen and sisal landscape Diet: |
LC | |
| Northern bobwhite | Colinus virginianus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
Size: 25 cm Habitat: prairies, farmland, woodlands Diet: |
NT |
Fossil species
- †Colinus eatoni Shufeldt 1915
- †Colinus suilium Brodkorb 1959
- †Colinus hibbardi Wetmore 1944
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Colinus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Northern Bobwhite (34922290546).jpg by Andy Morffew from Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, UK, CC BY 2.0
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