''Galerida'' is a genus of

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 ...

s in the family

Alaudidae Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark occu ...

. The current scientific name is derived from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. ''Galerida'' was the name for a lark with a crest, from ''galerum'', "cap". The name ''Galerida'' is synonymous with the earlier genus names ''Calendula'', ''Heliocorys'' and ''Ptilocorys''.

Taxonomy and systematics

The genus ''Galerida'' was established by the German zoologist

Friedrich Boie Friedrich Boie (4 June 1789 – 3 March 1870) was a German entomologist, herpetologist, ornithologist, and lawyer.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University ...

in 1828. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

was subsequently designated as the

crested lark The crested lark (''Galerida cristata'') is a species of lark widespread across Eurasia and northern Africa. It is a non-migratory bird, but can occasionally be found as a vagrant in Great Britain. Taxonomy and systematics The crested lark was ...

Extant species

The genus contains seven species:

Extinct species

There are at least two fossil species which are included in this genus: * †''Galerida bulgarica'' (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 ...

) * †''Galerida pannonica'' (Pliocene of Csarnota,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

)

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus ''Galerida'': *

Short-tailed lark The short-tailed lark (''Spizocorys fremantlii'') is a species of lark in the family Alaudidae. It is found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania. Its natural habitats are dry savannah, subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, and subtropica ...

(as ''Galerida fremantlii'') *

Dunn's lark Dunn's lark (''Eremalauda dunni'') is a small passerine bird of the lark family. It is a desert bird which is found across parts of the Sahara from Mauritania to central Sudan. Taxonomy and systematics Dunn's lark was originally described as be ...

(as ''Calendula dunni'')

References

Bird genera {{Alaudidae-stub