''Phoenicopterus'' 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 nom ...
of birds in the flamingo family
Phoenicopteridae
Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbean ...
.
Taxonomy
The
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 nom ...
''Phoenicopterus'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
in the
tenth edition of his ''
Systema Naturae'' to accommodate a single species, the
American flamingo
The American flamingo (''Phoenicopterus ruber'') is a large species of flamingo closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo native to the Neotropics. It was formerly considered conspecific with the greater flamingo, but that tre ...
''Phoenicopterus ruber''. The genus name is
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 ...
for "flamingo".
Species
The genus contains three species.
References
Phoenicopterus
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Bird genera
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