Cyanistes
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cyanistes is a genus of birds in the tit family Paridae. The genus was at one time considered as a subgenus of Parus. In 2005 an article describing a molecular phylogenetic study that had examined mitochondrial DNA sequences from members of the tit family, proposed that a number of subgenera including Cyanistes be elevated to genus status.[1] This proposal was accepted by the International Ornithologists' Union[2] and the British Ornithologists' Union.[3]
| Cyanistes | |
|---|---|
| |
| Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Paridae |
| Genus: | Cyanistes Kaup, 1829 |
| Type species | |
| Parus caeruleus Linnaeus, 1758 | |
| Species | |
|
C. caeruleus | |
Species
The genus contains three species:[2]
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyanistes caeruleus | Eurasian blue tit | Europe |
 | Cyanistes teneriffae | African blue tit | northern Africa and the Canary Islands. |
.jpg) | Cyanistes cyanus | Azure tit | Russia and Central Asia and northwest China, Manchuria and Pakistan. |
The name Cyanistes was introduced for a subgenus by the German naturalist Jakob Kaup in 1829.[4] The word comes from the classical Greek kuanos meaning dark-blue.[5] The type species was designated as the Eurasian blue tit by George Gray in 1842.[6][7]
