Bitterns are birds belonging to the subfamily Botaurinae of the heron family

Ardeidae 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 ''Ixobrychu ...

. Bitterns tend to be shorter-necked and more secretive than other members of the family. They were called ''hæferblæte'' in

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

; the word "bittern" came to English from

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...

''butor'', itself from Gallo-Roman ''butitaurus'', a compound of

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 ...

''būtiō'' (buzzard) and ''taurus'' (bull). Bitterns usually frequent reed beds and similar marshy areas and feed on amphibians, reptiles,

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 ...

s, and

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 ...

. Bitterns, like herons, egrets, and pelicans, fly with their necks retracted, unlike the similar storks,

ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word ...

es, and spoonbills, which fly with necks outstretched.

Species

There are currently 14 species divided into three genera within Botaurinae:

Notes

{{Taxonbar, from=Q855133 * Extant Miocene first appearances Taxa named by Ludwig Reichenbach