The

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

genus ''Eremophila'' comprises the two horned larks.

Taxonomy and systematics

The current genus name is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''eremos'', "desert", and ''phileo'', "to love".

Extant species

Extinct species

There is at least one fossil species included in this genus: * †''Eremophila orkhonensis'' (late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, synonym = ''Pliocalcarius orkhonensis'') * †''Eremophila prealpestris'' (late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Varshets Varshets ( bg, Вършец, variously transliterated; ) is a spa town in Montana Province, northwestern Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Varshets Municipality. As of December 2019, its population is 5,444. The town ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

)Boev, Z. 2012. Neogene Larks (Aves: Alaudidae (Vigors, 1825)) from Bulgaria - Acta zoologica bulgarica, 64 (3), 2012: 295-318.

Description

Unlike most other larks, these are distinctive looking species with striking head and face patterns, black and white in Temminck's lark and black and yellow in most horned larks. In the summer males of both species have black "horns", which give these larks their alternative names.

Distribution and habitat

These are larks of open country which nest on the ground. The migratory horned lark breeds across much of northern North America, Europe and Asia and in the mountains of Europe. Temminck's lark is mainly a resident breeding species across much of north Africa, through northern Arabia to western Iraq.

References

Bird genera Taxa named by Friedrich Boie {{Alaudidae-stub