Curruca

The genus Curruca was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1802. The type species (by tautonomy) is the lesser whitethroat Curruca curruca. The name Curruca is the Latin word for an unidentified small bird mentioned by the Roman poet Juvenal. The genus was split from Sylvia in the Howard and Moore Checklist in 2014 after a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2011. The split is now recognised by most modern authorities.

The genus contains 25 species:

• Barred warbler, Curruca nisoria, breeds central Palearctics; winters east Africa
• Layard's warbler, Curruca layardi, southwest Africa
• Banded parisoma, Curruca boehmi, northeast Africa
• Chestnut-vented warbler, Curruca subcoerulea, south Africa
• Lesser whitethroat, Curruca curruca, breeds in Palearctic; winters Africa, south Asia, India
• Brown parisoma, Curruca lugens, northeast Africa
• Yemen warbler, Curruca buryi, montane southwest Saudi Arabia and southwest Yemen (southwest Arabian Peninsula)
• Arabian warbler, Curruca leucomelaena, disjunctly from southeast Egypt and northeast Sudan to west, south Arabian Peninsula
• Western Orphean warbler, Curruca hortensis, breeds southwest Europe and northwest Africa; winters west Africa Senegal to Chad
• Eastern Orphean warbler, Curruca crassirostris, breeds southeast Europe to central Asia; winters northeast Africa to south Arabian Peninsula, south Iran, south Pakistan, India
• African desert warbler, Curruca deserti, Morocco to west Libya and Niger
• Asian desert warbler, Curruca nana, breeds north Iran to Mongolia and northwest China; winters northeast Africa and Asia Minor
• Tristram's warbler, Curruca deserticola, northwest Africa
• Menetries's warbler, Curruca mystacea, breeds central south Palearctic; winters northeast Africa, Arabian Peninsula
• Rüppell's warbler, Curruca ruppeli, breeds south Greece, Crete, Turkey and Syria; winters northeast Africa
• Cyprus warbler, Curruca melanothorax, breeds Cyprus; winters Egypt, Sudan
• Sardinian warbler, Curruca melanocephala, breeds southwest Palearctic; winters north Africa
• Western subalpine warbler, Curruca iberiae, breeds Iberia, south France, and extreme northwest Italy. Also northwest Africa from Morocco to Tunisia; winters northwest, west Africa
• Moltoni's warbler, Curruca subalpina, northwest to central north Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, Balearics
• Eastern subalpine warbler, Curruca cantillans, breeds northeast Italy through southeast Europe to west Turkey. Also south Italy and Sicily; winters north Africa
• Common whitethroat, Curruca communis, breeds Palearctic; winters Africa
• Spectacled warbler, Curruca conspicillata, breeds southwest Palearctic; winters northwest, north Africa
• Marmora's warbler, Curruca sarda, breeds Mediterranean Islands; winters northwest Africa
• Dartford warbler, Curruca undata, southwest Palearctic
• Balearic warbler, Curruca balearica, Balearic Islands