The magpie-robins or shamas (from ''shama'', Bengali and

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

for ''C. malabaricus'') are medium-sized insectivorous birds (some also eat berries and other fruit) in the genus ''Copsychus''. They were formerly in the thrush family Turdidae, but are now treated as part of the

Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica'') and north ...

family Muscicapidae. They are garden- and forest-dwelling species found in Africa and Asia. The genus ''Copsychus'' was introduced by the German naturalist

Johann Georg Wagler Johann Georg Wagler (28 March 1800 – 23 August 1832) was a German herpetologist and ornithologist. Wagler was assistant to Johann Baptist von Spix, and gave lectures in zoology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich after it was moved t ...

in 1827. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

was subsequently designated as the oriental magpie-robin (''Copsychus saularis'') by the English zoologist

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoology, zoologist and author, and head of the Ornithology, ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, London f ...

in 1840. The name ''Copsychus'' is from the

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

''kopsukhos'' or ''kopsikhos'', meaning "blackbird". The genus contains 17 species: The Seychelles magpie-robin is one of the most endangered birds in the world, with a population of less than 250, although this is a notable increase from just 16 in 1970.

References

* {{Muscicapidae-stub