''Gelochelidon'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

tern Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists o ...

s. It was considered a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus until the

Australian tern The Australian tern or Australian gull-billed tern (''Gelochelidon macrotarsa'') is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''gelao'', "to laugh", and ''khelidon'', " swallow". It was previously considered conspecifi ...

was split from the gull-billed tern.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Gelochelidon'' was introduced in 1830 by the German zoologist

Alfred Brehm Alfred Edmund Brehm (; 2 February 1829 – 11 November 1884) was a German zoologist, writer, director of zoological gardens and the son of Christian Ludwig Brehm, a famous pastor and ornithologist. Through the book title '' Brehms Tierl ...

. 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( ...

is the gull-billed tern. The name combines the

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 p ...

''gelaō'' meaning "to laugh" with ''khelidōn'' meaning "swallow". The genus contains 2 species:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q11840576 Bird genera Laridae Taxa named by Christian Ludwig Brehm