''Climacteris'' is a genus 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 ...

in the family

Climacteridae There are seven species of Australasian treecreeper in the passerine bird family Climacteridae. They are medium-small, mostly brown birds with patterning on their underparts, and all are endemic to Australia-New Guinea. They resemble, but are no ...

. These birds and the other members of the family, genus ''

Cormobates ''Cormobates'' is a genus of bird in the Australasian treecreeper There are seven species of Australasian treecreeper in the passerine bird family Climacteridae. They are medium-small, mostly brown birds with patterning on their underparts, a ...

'', are similar to Northern Hemisphere creepers,

Certhiidae The treecreepers are a family, Certhiidae, of small passerine birds, widespread in wooded regions of the Northern Hemisphere and sub-Saharan Africa. The family contains eleven species in two genera, ''Certhia'' and ''Salpornis''. Their plumage is ...

, in climbing helically up tree trunks looking for insect food. Differences from ''Cormobates'' are *''Climacteris'' species have black, slightly downcurved bills. *They have a rusty chest stripe in the female. (In ''Cormobates'' the female is marked on the face.) *They have simple vocal repertoires that are the same for both sexes. *They lay heavily marked pinkish eggs (Simpson and Day 1999). *They are

cooperative breeders Cooperative breeding is a social system characterized by alloparental care: offspring receive care not only from their parents, but also from additional group members, often called helpers. Cooperative breeding encompasses a wide variety of group s ...

; male offspring of previous broods and sometimes other individuals help breeding pairs (Doerr 2003). It contains the following species: The Australian author

G. M. Mathews Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England. Life He was born in Biamble in New South Wales the son of Robert H. M ...

published new generic names in 1912, based on characteristics that distinguished two species from this genus, * ''Whitlocka'', to describe the black-tailed northwestern species, ''

Climacteris melanurus The black-tailed treecreeper (''Climacteris melanurus'') is a species of bird in the family Climacteridae. It is endemic to north and northwestern Australia. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland f ...

''. The generic epithet honoured the ornithologist

F. Lawson Whitlock Frederick Bulstrode Lawson Whitlock (1860-1953) was an ornithological writer and oölogist, active in England and across Western Australia. The first years of his life, living in England, he became known as F.B. Whitlock. Later in life, in A ...

.whitlocka
Jobling, J. A. (2018). Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology. In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2018). ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive''. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from www.hbw.com on 21 July 2018). *''Neoclima'', assigning the species ''Climacteris picumnus'', brown treecreeper, of Temminck as the type.neoclima
Jobling, J. A. (2018). Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology. In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2018). ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive''. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from www.hbw.com on 21 July 2018).

References

* * Peterson, Alan P. (Editor). 1999
''Zoological Nomenclature Resource'' (Zoonomen)
Accessed 2007-08-30. * Climacteridae Bird genera {{passeri-stub