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The great grey shrike, northern grey shrike, or northern shrike (''Lanius excubitor'') is a large songbird species in the shrike family (Laniidae). It forms a superspecies with its parapatric southern relatives, the southern grey shrike (''L. meridionalis''), the Chinese grey shrike (''L. sphenocerus'') and the loggerhead shrike (''L. ludovicianus''). Within the great grey shrike species itself, there are nine subspecies. Males and females are similar in plumage, pearly grey above with a black eye-mask and white underparts. Breeding takes place generally north of 50° northern latitude in northern Europe and Asia (where it is known as the great grey shrike), and in North America (where it is known as the northern shrike) north of 55° northern latitude in Canada and Alaska. Most populations migrate south in winter to temperate regions.〔Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 152–153〕 The great grey shrike is carnivorous, with rodents making up over half its diet. ==Taxonomy and systematics== The scientific name of the great grey shrike literally means "sentinel butcher": ''Lanius'' is the Latin term for a butcher, while ''excubitor'' is Latin for a watchman or sentinel. This refers to the birds' two most conspicuous behaviours – storing food animals by impaling them on thorns, and using exposed tree-tops or poles to watch the surrounding area for possible prey. Use of the former by Conrad Gessner established the quasi-scientific term ''lanius'' for the shrikes. Linnaeus chose his specific name because the species "observes approaching hawks and announces (presence ) of songbirds"〔''Accipitres adventantes observat & aviculis indicat'': Linnaeus (1758)〕 as he put it. This habit was also put to use in falconry, as fancifully recorded by William Yarrell later.〔Gessner (1555): p. 557, Linnaeus (1758), Glare (1968–1982): pp. 637, 1000, Swainson (2008): p. 47〕 The species was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 edition of ''Systema Naturae'' under the current scientific name. His description is ''L() cauda cuneiformi lateribus alba, dorso cano, alis nigris macula alba'' – "a shrike with a wedge-shaped white-bordered tail, back grey, wings black with white spot". At that time, none of the other grey shrikes – including the lesser grey shrike (''L. minor''), for which the description of the tail pattern is incorrect and which some authors already recognized as distinct – were considered separate species by Linnaeus, but that was to change soon. Linnaeus' binomial name replaced the cumbersome and confusing descriptive names of the earlier naturalist books he gives as his sources: in his own ''Fauna Svecica'' he named it ''ampelis caerulescens, alis caudaque nigricantibus'' ("light-blue waxwing, wings and tail blackish"), while it is called ''pica cinerea sive lanius major'' ("ash-grey magpie or greater shrike") by Johann Leonhard Frisch, who in his splendid colour plate confused male and female. But most authors cited by Linnaeus – Eleazar Albin, Ulisse Aldrovandi, John Ray and Francis Willughby – called it ''lanius cinereus major'' or similar, which is a near-literal equivalent of the common name "great grey shrike". The type locality of Linnaeus is simply given as ''Europa'' ("Europe").〔Aldrovandi (1646), Willughby (1676): p. 53, Ray (1713), Frisch (1720), Albin (1731–1738), Linnaeus (1746, 1758)〕 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「Great grey shrike」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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