''Nycticorax'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of night herons. The name ''Nycticorax'' means "night raven" and derives from 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 peri ...

νύκτος, ''nuktos'' "night" and κοραξ, ''korax'', "raven". It refers to the largely

nocturnal Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed sens ...

feeding habits of this group 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, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the

black-crowned night heron The black-crowned night heron (''Nycticorax nycticorax''), or black-capped night heron, commonly shortened to just night heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and N ...

. These are medium-sized

heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

s which often are migratory in the colder parts of their ranges. Adults are short-necked, relatively short-legged and stout herons; the two

extant Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...

species both have a black crown and a whitish belly, while the wings, chest, neck and auriculars are grey or

rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish-red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a dia ...

depending on the species. Young birds are brown, flecked with white and grey, and are quite similar to each other in the extant species. At least some of the extinct

Mascarenes The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their ...

taxa appear to have retained this juvenile plumage in adult birds. Night herons nest in

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

on platforms of sticks in a group of trees, or on the ground in protected locations such as islands or

reed bed A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

s. Three to eight

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are laid. They stand at the water's edge, and wait to ambush prey, mainly at night. They primarily eat small

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s, aquatic

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, and small

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s. During the day they rest in trees or bushes.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Nycticorax'' was introduced in 1817 by the English naturalist

Thomas Forster Thomas Forster (1683 – October 1738), of Adderstone Hall, Northumberland, was an English landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1716. He served as a general of the Jacobite army in the 1715 Uprising ...

to accommodate the

. The epithet ''nycticorax'' is from

and combines ''nux'', ''nuktos'' meaning "night" and ''korax'' meaning "raven". The word was used by authors such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

and

Hesychius of Miletus Hesychius of Miletus ( el, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Μιλήσιος, translit=Hesychios o Milesios), Greek chronicler and biographer, surnamed Illustrius, son of an advocate, lived in Constantinople in the 6th century AD during the reign of Justinian. ...

for a "bird of ill omen", perhaps an owl. The word was used by the Swiss naturalist

Conrad Gessner Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...

in 1555 and then by subsequent authors for the black-crowned night heron. The genus now contains just two species. In addition to the species listed below, the night herons of the genera ''

Nyctanassa ''Nyctanassa'' is a genus of night herons from the Americas, especially (but not exclusively) warmer coastal regions. They were formerly included in the genus ''Nycticorax'', but today all major authorities recognize them as different. The nam ...

'' and ''

Gorsachius ''Gorsachius'' is a genus of Old World night herons typically found near water in forested regions. These are medium-sized herons which are migratory in the colder parts of their ranges, but otherwise resident. They are the least known, most st ...

'' were formerly placed in ''Nycticorax''.

Extant species

Extinct species and fossils

Rodrigues night heron The Rodrigues night heron (''Nycticorax megacephalus'') is an extinct species of heron formerly occurring on the Mascarene island of Rodrigues (island), Rodrigues. Taxonomy It is known from subfossil bones and the 1708 description of François L ...

, ''Nycticorax megacephalus'' (

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

) * Réunion night heron, ''Nycticorax duboisi'' (

) *

Mauritius night heron The Mauritius night heron (''Nycticorax mauritianus'') is an extinct night heron species from Mauritius. It is only known by seven subfossil bone remains consisted of cranium, pelvis, coracoid, ulna, radius, and tarsometatarsus found in Mare ...

, ''Nycticorax mauritianus'' (

) *

Ascension night heron The Ascension night heron (''Nycticorax olsoni'') is an extinct night heron species from the genus ''Nycticorax'' endemic to the South Atlantic island of Ascension Island, Ascension. It is predominantly known from the bone fragments of six specim ...

, ''Nycticorax olsoni'' (

) *

Niue night heron The Niue night heron (''Nycticorax kalavikai'') is an extinct night heron species that was endemism, endemic to the island of Niue in West Polynesia. History The night heron was described in 2000 from subfossil bones collected in January 1995 b ...

, ''Nycticorax kalavikai'' (

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

) * ʻEua night heron, ''Nycticorax'' sp. (

) * Lifuka night heron, ''Nycticorax'' sp. (

) – may be same as

ʻEua Eua is an island in the kingdom of Tonga. It is close to Tongatapu, but forms a separate administrative division. It has an area of , and a population in 2021 of 4,903 people. Geography Eua is a hilly island, the highest peaks are the ''Teemo ...

species In addition, the following taxa are known from fossil bones: * ''Nycticorax'' sp. (Early

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

of Fayyum, Egypt) (

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

) * ''Nycticorax'''' fidens'' (Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

of McGehee Farm, US) (

)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q133003 Bird genera Extant Rupelian first appearances Rupelian genus first appearances Taxa named by Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster