Microcarbo
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Microcarbo is a genus of fish-eating birds, known as cormorants, of the family Phalacrocoracidae. The genus was formerly subsumed within Phalacrocorax.
| Microcarbo | |
|---|---|
| |
| Little pied cormorant Microcarbo melanoleucos | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Suliformes |
| Family: | Phalacrocoracidae |
| Genus: | Microcarbo Bonaparte, 1856 |
| Type species | |
| Pelecanus pygmaeus (pygmy cormorant) Pallas, 1773 | |
| Species | |
|
See text | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Nanocorax (in part) | |
Microcarbo has been recognized as a valid genus by the IOC's World Bird List[1] on the basis of work by Siegel-Causey (1988), Kennedy et al. (2000), and Christidis and Boles (2008).
As suggested by the name, this genus contains the smallest of the world's cormorants. It is also sister to all other cormorants, having diverged from the rest of the family between 12.8 and 15.4 million years ago.[2]
Taxonomy
The genus Microcarbo was introduced in 1856 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte with the pygmy cormorant as the type species.[3][4] The name combines the Ancient Greek mikros meaning "small" with the genus name Carbo that was introduced by Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1789.[5]
The genus contains five species.[1]
List of species
| Common name | Scientific name and subspecies | Range | Size and ecology | IUCN status and estimated population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crowned cormorant
|
Microcarbo coronatus (Wahlberg,, 1855) |
Cape Agulhas north to Swakopmund along the coast of southern Africa | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
|
| Little cormorant
|
Microcarbo niger (Vieillot, 1817) |
Indian Subcontinent east to Java | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
|
| Little pied cormorant
|
Microcarbo melanoleucos (Vieillot, 1817) Three subspecies
|
New Zealand, from Stewart Island to Northland, mainland Australia, Tasmania and Indonesia |
Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
|
| Pygmy cormorant
|
Microcarbo pygmaeus (Pallas, 1773) |
south-east of Europe (east of Italy) and south-west of Asia, in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan |
Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
|
| Reed cormorant
|
Microcarbo africanus (Gmelin, JF, 1789) Two subspecies
|
Africa south of the Sahara, and Madagascar | Size: Habitat: Diet: |
LC
|
_-_20070322.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
- †Serventys' cormorant, Microcarbo serventyorum