Rock thrush
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The rock thrushes, Monticola, are a genus of chats, medium-sized mostly insectivorous or omnivorous songbirds. All are Old World birds, and most are associated with mountainous regions.
| Rock thrushes | |
|---|---|
| |
| Male short-toed rock thrush (Monticola brevipes) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Muscicapidae |
| Genus: | Monticola F. Boie, 1822 |
| Type species | |
| Turdus saxatilis Linnaeus, 1766 | |
| Species | |
|
See text | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Taxonomy
The genus Monticola was erected by the German naturalist Friedrich Boie in 1822. Boie listed two species, saxatilis and cyanus but did not designate the type species.[1] In 1826 Boie introduced a different genus name, Petrocossyphus, containing a single species, Turdus saxatilis Linnaeus.[2] This new genus name was not accepted by other ornithologists as according to Hugh Edwin Strickland: "The former name ought therefore to stand, as authors ought no more to alter their own generic names when once published than those of others".[3] The type species of the genus Monticola is Turdus saxatilis Linnaeus, the common rock thrush.[4][5] Monticola is the Latin word for mountain-dweller or mountaineer.[6]
The genus was formerly included in the thrush family Turdidae,[7] but molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2004 and 2010 showed that the species are more closely related to members of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae.[8][9]
The genus contains the following species:[10]
| Image | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
_037.jpg) | Blue-capped rock thrush | Monticola cinclorhyncha | Himalayas; winters to western and eastern Ghats |
 | White-throated rock thrush | Monticola gularis | Manchuria |
 | Chestnut-bellied rock thrush | Monticola rufiventris | Himalayas, Patkai and southern China |
 | Short-toed rock thrush | Monticola brevipes | arid areas of southwestern Angola and southern Africa |
 | Sentinel rock thrush | Monticola explorator | southern Africa |
_male_2.jpg) | Amber Mountain rock thrush | Monticola erythronotus | Amber Mountain, Madagascar |
,_Ranomafana_National_Park,_Madagascar.jpg) | Forest rock thrush | Monticola sharpei | Madagascar |
.jpg) | Benson's rock thrush | Monticola sharpei bensoni | southern-central Madagascar |
 | Littoral rock thrush | Monticola imerina | southern coastal Madagascar |
 | Little rock thrush | Monticola rufocinereus | eastern Afromontane |
.png) | Common rock thrush | Monticola saxatilis | temperate rocky regions of Palearctic; winters to Africa |
_(27649993912).jpg) | Blue rock thrush | Monticola solitarius | temperate and elevated areas of Palearctic; winters to Africa, Arabia and Indomalaya |
.jpg) | Cape rock thrush | Monticola rupestris | southern Africa |
.jpg) | Miombo rock thrush | Monticola angolensis | Miombo woodlands |
.jpg) | White-winged cliff chat | Monticola semirufus | Ethiopian Highlands |
Fossil record
Monticola pongraczi (Pliocene of Beremend, Hungary) [11]
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