''Trochalopteron'' is a genus of
passerine
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...
birds in the laughingthrush family
Leiothrichidae
The laughingthrushes are a family, Leiothrichidae, of Old World passerine birds. They are diverse in size and coloration. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The entire fam ...
.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Trochalopteron'' was introduced in 1843 by the English zoologist
Edward Blyth. 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 ...
''trokhalos'' meaning "round" or "bowed" with ''pteron'' meaning "wing". 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 specime ...
was designated in 1930 by
E. C. Stuart Baker as the
scaly laughingthrush.
Species
The genus contains the following 19 species:
Former species
Two species that were formerly included in this genus have been moved to ''
Montecincla'' based on phylogenetic studies that showed them to be more distantly related to the ''Trochalopteron'' clade than to a clade formed by species in the genera ''Leiothrix'', ''Actinodura'', ''Minla'', ''Crocias'' and ''Heterophasia''.
*
Black-chinned laughingthrush, ''Montecincla cachinnans'' (with ''jerdoni'' separated as a full species)
*
Kerala laughingthrush, ''Montecincla fairbanki''
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2129285
Bird genera
Leiothrichidae
Taxa named by Edward Blyth