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The European robin (''Erithacus rubecula''), most commonly known in Anglophone Europe simply as the robin, is a small insectivorous passerine bird, specifically a chat, that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. Around 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 in) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north. The term ''robin'' is also applied to some birds in other families with red or orange breasts. These include the American robin (''Turdus migratorius''), which is a thrush, and the Australian red robins of the genus ''Petroica'', members of a family whose relationships are unclear. ==Taxonomy and systematics== The European robin was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, ''Systema Naturae'', under the name of ''Motacilla rubecula''. Its specific epithet ''rubecula'' is a diminutive derived from the Latin ''ruber'' 'red'. The genus ''Erithacus'' was created by French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1800, giving the bird its current binomial name of ''E. rubecula''.〔Cuvier, G. (1800) ''Lecons d'Anatomie Comparée'', Paris. 〕 The distinctive orange breast of both sexes contributed to the European robin's original name of ''redbreast'' (''orange'' as the name of a colour was unknown in English until the sixteenth century, by which time the fruit of that name had been introduced). In the fifteenth century, when it became popular to give human names to familiar species, the bird came to be known as robin redbreast, which was eventually shortened to ''robin''. Other older English names for the bird include ''ruddock'' and ''robinet''. In American literature of the late 19th century, this robin was frequently called the ''English robin''. The Frisian ''robyntsje'' or ''robynderke'' is similar to the English name, while Dutch ''roodborstje'' and French ''rouge-gorge'' both refer to the distinctively coloured front. The robin belongs to a group of mainly insectivorous birds that have been variously assigned to the thrushes or "flycatchers", depending on how these groups were perceived taxonomically. Eventually, the flycatcher-thrush assemblage was re-analysed and the genus ''Erithacus'' assigned to a group of thrush-like true flycatchers, the tribe Saxicolini, that also includes the common nightingale and the Old World chats. Two Eastern Palearctic species are usually placed in the genus ''Erithacus'', the Japanese robin (''E. akahige'') and the Ryūkyū robin (''E. komadori''), the latter being a restricted-range island species. Biogeography and mtDNA cytochrome ''b'' sequence data indicate that these might better be classified with some Far Eastern "nightingales", leaving only the European species in ''Erithacus''. 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「European robin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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