Red-billed starling

The red-billed starling (Spodiopsar sericeus) is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in south and southeastern China.

Red-billed starling
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Sturnidae
Genus:	Spodiopsar
Species:	S. sericeus
Binomial name
Spodiopsar sericeus (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
Synonyms
Sturnus sericeus

Taxonomy

The red-billed starling was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the starlings in the genus Sturnus and coined the binomial name Sturnus sericeus.^[2][3] The specific epithet sericeus is Medieval Latin meaning "silken".^[4] Gmelin based his account on the "silk starling" from China that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist Peter Brown from a specimen owned by the collector Marmaduke Tunstall.^[5]

The red-billed starling was formerly placed in the genus Sturnus. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2008 found that the genus was polyphyletic.^[6] In the reoganization to create monotypic genera, the red-billed starling and the white-cheeked starling were moved to the resurrected genus Spodiopsar that had been introduced in 1889 by Richard Bowdler Sharpe. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.^[7]

White-cheeked starling and red-billed starling hybrid in Japan.^[8]

References

1. BirdLife International (2018). "Spodiopsar sericeus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2018: e.T22710867A132091096. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22710867A132091096.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
2. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1789). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 2 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. p. 805.
3. Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1962). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 15. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 106.
4. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 354. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
5. Brown, Peter (1776). Nouvelles illustrations de zoologie : contenant cinquante planches enlumineés d'oiseaux curieux, et qui non etés jamais descrits, et quelques de quadrupedes, de reptiles et d'insectes, avec de courtes descriptions systematiques (in French and English). London: B. White. p. 48, Plate 21.
6. Zuccon, D.; Pasquet, E.; Ericson, P.G.P. (2008). "Phylogenetic relationships among Palearctic–Oriental starlings and mynas (genera Sturnus and Acridotheres: Sturnidae)". Zoologica Scripta. 37 (5): 469–481. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2008.00339.x.
7. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2023). "Nuthatches, Wallcreeper, treecreepers, mockingbirds, starlings, oxpeckers". IOC World Bird List Version 13.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
8. Sato, S.; Kimura, H.; Hirata, S.; Yoshiaki, O. (2010). "A record of interspecific hybridization of the grey starling Sturnus cineraceus and the red-billed starling Sturnus sericeus in Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture". Japanese Journal of Ornithology. 59: 76–79. doi:10.3838/jjo.59.76.