|
The gray catbird (''Dumetella carolinensis''), also spelled grey catbird, is a medium-sized North American and Central American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the "catbird" genus ''Dumetella''. Like the black catbird (''Melanoptila glabrirostris''), it is among the basal lineages of the Mimidae, probably a closer relative of the Caribbean thrasher and trembler assemblage than of the mockingbirds and ''Toxostoma'' thrashers. In some areas it is known as the slate-colored mockingbird.〔(Gray Catbird ), BirdNature.com〕 ==Nomenclature and taxonomy== The name ''Dumetella'' is based upon the Latin term ''dūmus'' ("thorny thicket";〔 it thus means approximately "small thornbush-dweller" or "small bird of the thornbushes". It refers to the species' habit of singing when hidden in undergrowth. The specific name ''carolinensis'' is New Latin for "from the Carolinas". The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1766 edition of ''Systema naturae''. His original name ''Muscicapa carolinensis'' reflected the belief, widespread at that time, that the gray catbird was some sort of Old World flycatcher (presumably due to its remarkably plain coloration, not similar to other mimids).〔 The genus name has a convoluted nomenclatorial history. The monotypic genus ''Galeoscoptes'', proposed by Jean Cabanis in 1850, was widely used up to 1907. This name roughly means "capped mockingbird", from Latin ''galea'' "helmet" and Ancient Greek ''skóptein'' (σκώπτειν, "to scold" or "to mock"). But as it turned out, ''Dumetella'' was a technically acceptable senior synonym, even though the peculiar circumstances of its publishing left the identity of its author unsolved until 1989. As it turned out, the genus name was published by C.T. Wood in 1837. His description is somewhat eccentric, and was published under his pseudonym "S.D.W.". Wood misquotes his source—John Latham's 1783 ''General Synopsis of Birds''—as calling the bird "cat thrush", probably because he knew the species under that name from George Shaw's ''General Zoology''. Actually, Latham's name was "cat flycatcher", analogous to the scientific name of Linné.〔〔〔Woodhouse, S.C. (1910): (''English-Greek Dictionary – A Vocabulary of the Attic Language'' ). George Routledge & Sons Ltd., Broadway House, Ludgate Hill, E.C.〕 Shaw (and subsequently C.T. Wood) used L.J.P. Vieillot's specific name ''felivox''. This means "cat voice", a contraction of Latin ''felis'' ("cat") and ''vox'' ("voice"). Vieillot, differing from the earlier authors, believed the bird to be a true thrush (''Turdus'').〔Glare, P.G.W. (ed.) (1968–1982): ''Oxford Latin Dictionary'' (1st ed.). Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-864224-5〕〔 Though mimids were widely considered Turdidae until the 1850s, this is actually not significantly more correct than treating them as Old World flycatchers, as these three families are actually distinct lineages of the Muscicapoidea superfamily. Somewhat ironically, in the mid-20th century, the Turdidae and even most of the Sylvioidea were lumped in the Muscicapidae—but the Mimidae were not. Lastly, the smaller gray catbirds from Bermuda, which have proportionally narrow and shorter rectrices and primary remiges, were described as subspecies ''bermudianus'' ("from Bermuda") by Outram Bangs in 1901. But this taxon was never widely accepted, and today the gray catbird is generally considered monotypic as a species, too. 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「Gray catbird」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|