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The common starling (''Sturnus vulgaris''), also known as the European starling, or in the British Isles just the starling, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about long and has glossy black plumage with a metallic sheen, which is speckled with white at some times of year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer; young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the ''Mabinogion'' and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare. The common starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia, and it has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa and Fiji.〔Long, John L. (1981). Introduced Birds of the World. Agricultural Protection Board of Western Australia. pp. 21–493〕 This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa. The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year. This species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites. Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests; however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts. Introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success except in preventing the colonisation of Western Australia. The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks. Despite this, its huge global population is not thought to be declining significantly, so the common starling is classified as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. == Taxonomy and systematics == The common starling was first described by Linnaeus in his ''Systema Naturae'' in 1758 under its current binomial name.〔Linnaeus (1758) p.167.〕 ''Sturnus'' and ''vulgaris'' are derived from the Latin for "starling" and "common" respectively.〔Jobling (2010) pp. 367, 405.〕 The Old English ''staer'', later ''stare'', and the Latin ''sturnus'' are both derived from an unknown Indo-European root dating back to the second millennium BC. "Starling" was first recorded in the 11th century, when it referred to the juvenile of the species, but by the 16th century it had already largely supplanted "stare" to refer to birds of all ages.〔Lockwood (1984) p. 147.〕 The older name is referenced in William Butler Yeats' poem "The Stare's Nest by My Window".〔Yeats (2000) p. 173〕 The International Ornithological Congress' preferred English vernacular name is common starling. The starling family, Sturnidae, is an entirely Old World group apart from introductions elsewhere, with the greatest numbers of species in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.〔Feare & Craig (1998) p. 13.〕 The genus ''Sturnus'' is polyphyletic and relationships between its members are not fully resolved. The closest relation of the common starling is the spotless starling. The non-migratory spotless starling may be descended from a population of ancestral ''S. vulgaris'' that survived in an Iberian refugium during an ice age retreat, and mitochondrial gene studies suggest that it could be considered as a subspecies of the common starling. There is more genetic variation between common starling populations than between nominate common starling and spotless starling.〔 Although common starling remains are known from the Middle Pleistocene, part of the problem in resolving relationships in the Sturnidae is the paucity of the fossil record for the family as a whole.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Common starling」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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