Wheatear

Not to be confused with Ear of wheat, or the surname Wheater.

The wheatears /ˈhwiːtɪər/ are passerine birds of the genus Oenanthe. They were formerly considered to be members of the thrush family, Turdidae, but are now more commonly placed in the flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. This is an Old World group, but the northern wheatear has established a foothold in eastern Canada and Greenland and in western Canada and Alaska.

Wheatears
Male northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Muscicapidae
Subfamily:	Saxicolinae
Genus:	Oenanthe Vieillot, 1816
Type species
Motacilla oenanthe[1] Linnaeus, 1758
Species
See text
Synonyms
Cercomela

Taxonomy

The genus Oenanthe was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with Oenanthe leucura, the black wheatear, as the type species.^[2][3] The genus formerly included fewer species but molecular phylogenetic studies of birds in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae found that the genus Cercomela was polyphyletic with five species, including the type species C. melanura, phylogenetically nested within the genus Oenanthe.^[4][5] This implied that Cercomela and Oenanthe were synonyms. The genus Oenanthe (Vieillot, 1816) has taxonomic priority over Cercomela (Bonaparte, 1856) making Cercomela a junior synonym.^[4][6] The genus name Oenanthe was used by Aristotle for an unidentified bird. The word is derived from the Greek oenoē meaning "vine" and anthos meaning "bloom". The bird was associated with the grape harvest season.^[7]

The name "wheatear" is not derived from "wheat" or any sense of "ear", but is a folk etymology of "white" and "arse", referring to the prominent white rump found in most species.^[8]

Description

Most species have characteristic black and white or red and white markings on their rumps or their long tails. Most species are strongly sexually dimorphic; only the male has the striking plumage patterns characteristic of the genus, though the females share the white or red rump patches.

Species list

The genus contains 33 species:^[9]

Image	Common Name	Scientific Name	Distribution
	Northern wheatear	Oenanthe oenanthe	Holarctic ; winters to Sub-Saharan Africa
	Atlas wheatear	Oenanthe seebohmi	Maghreb ; winters in western Sahel
	Capped wheatear	Oenanthe pileata	southern Sub-Saharan Africa
-	Buff-breasted wheatear	Oenanthe bottae	Asir Mountains
	Rusty-breasted wheatear	Oenanthe Renata	Ethiopian Highlands
	Isabelline wheatear	Oenanthe isabellina	central-southern Eurasia ; winters to Sub-Saharan, Africa, Middle east and South Asia
-	Heuglin's wheatear	Oenanthe heuglinii	northern Sub-Saharan Africa
	Hooded wheatear	Oenanthe monacha	Middle- ast
	Desert wheatear	Oenanthe deserti	Maghreb and central Asia ; winters to North Africa, Middle East and South Asia
	Western black-eared wheatear	Oenanthe hispanica	western Mediterranean ; winters to western Sahel
	Pied wheatear	Oenanthe pleschanka	central Asia ; winters to East Africa
	Eastern black-eared wheatear	Oenanthe melanoleuca	eastern Mediterranean ; winters to eastern Sahel
	Cyprus wheatear	Oenanthe cypraica	Cyprus
	White-fronted black chat	Oenanthe albifrons	Sudan (region)
-	Somali wheatear	Oenanthe phillipsi	Horn of Africa
	Red-rumped wheatear	Oenanthe moesta	Morocco to Jordan ; partly winters to eastern Saudi Arabia
	Blackstart	Oenanthe melanura	Sahel and Red Sea region
	Familiar chat	Oenanthe familiaris	Sub-Saharan Africa
-	Brown-tailed rock chat	Oenanthe scotocerca	Chad, western Sudan and Horn of Africa
-	Sombre rock chat	Oenanthe dubia	montane desert of central Ethiopia
	Brown rock chat	Oenanthe fusca	northern South Asia
	Variable wheatear	Oenanthe picata	from eastern Iran and southern Kazakhstan to Indus river ; winters to UAE and northwestern India
	Finsch's wheatear	Oenanthe finschii	Anatolia to western Central Asia ; winters to Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
	Maghreb wheatear	Oenanthe halophila	Maghreb
	Mourning wheatear	Oenanthe lugens	Middle East
	Basalt wheatear	Oenanthe warriae	basalt desert of eastern Jordan and southern Syria
	Kurdish wheatear	Oenanthe 'xanthoprymna'	Kurdistan ; winters to Red Sea and southern Arabian Peninsula
	Red-tailed wheatear	Oenanthe chrysopygia	Iran and Pakistan ; winters to Arabian peninsula and northwestern South Asia
	White-crowned wheatear	Oenanthe leucopyga	North Africa and Middle East
	Hume's wheatear	Oenanthe albonigra	Iran, eastern Oman to Indus valley
	Black wheatear	Oenanthe leucura	Iberian Peninsula to western Libya and Mauritania
	Arabian wheatear	Oenanthe lugentoides	Arabian Peninsula
	Abyssinian wheatear	Oenanthe lugubrious	montane East Africa

Behaviour

Wheatears are terrestrial insectivorous birds of open, often dry, country. They often nest in rock crevices or disused burrows. Northern species are long-distance migrants, wintering in Africa.

Fossil record

• Oenanthe kormosi (Late Miocene of Polgardi, Hungary) ^[10]
• Oenanthe pongraczi (Pliocene of Csarnota, Hungary) ^[10]

References

1. "Muscicapidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
2. Mayr, Ernst; Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, eds. (1960). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 10. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 121.
3. Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1883) [1816]. Saunders, Howard (ed.). Vieillot's Analyse d'une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire (in French). London. p. 43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
4. Outlaw, R.K.; Voelker, G.; Bowie, R.C.K. (2010). "Shall we chat? Evolutionary relationships in the genus Cercomela (Muscicapidae) and its relation to Oenanthe reveals extensive polyphyly among chats distributed in Africa, India and the Palearctic". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 55 (1): 284–292. Bibcode:2010MolPE..55..284O. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.09.023. PMID 19772925.
5. Aliabadian, M.; Kaboli, M.; Förschler, M.I.; Nijman, V.; Chamani, A.; Tillier, A.; Prodon, R.; Pasquet, E.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Zuccon, D. (2012). "Convergent evolution of morphological and ecological traits in the open-habitat chat complex (Aves, Muscicapidae: Saxicolinae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 65 (1): 35–45. Bibcode:2012MolPE..65...35A. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2012.05.011. PMID 22634240.
6. Sangster, George; Collinson, J. Martin; Crochet, Pierre-André; Knox, Alan G.; Parkin, David T.; Votier, Stephen C. (2013). "Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: ninth report". Ibis. 155 (4): 898–907 [903]. doi:10.1111/ibi.12091.
7. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
8. "Wheatear". Merriam Webster Online. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
9. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2023). "Chats, Old World flycatchers". IOC World Bird List Version 13.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
10. Kessler, E. 2013. Neogene songbirds (Aves, Passeriformes) from Hungary. – Hantkeniana, Budapest, 2013, 8: 37–149.