''Acridotheres'' 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 ...

starling Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus '' Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, ...

s, the "typical"

myna The myna (; also spelled mynah) is a bird of the starling family (Sturnidae). This is a group of passerine birds which are native to southern Asia, especially India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Several species have been introduced to areas lik ...

s, which are tropical members of the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Sturnidae.

Distribution

This genus has representatives in tropical southern

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

east to southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. Two species have been introduced widely elsewhere. The common myna has been introduced to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

, and the crested myna to the

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

region of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

Morphology

The ''Acridotheres'' mynas are generally dark or dull birds with and fluted calls like most starlings; the sexes are similar. They walk and hop, and may share adaptations along with the ''Sturnus'' starlings that have modifications to the skull and its muscles for open bill probing or prying. They resemble the hill mynas (''

Gracula ''Gracula'' is a genus of mynas, tropical members of the starling family of birds found in southern Asia and introduced to Florida in the United States. Taxonomy The genus ''Gracula'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeu ...

'') with which they often co-occur, in having large white or buff wing patches which are obvious in flight and in some also naked areas on the head, but differ in that only the head plumage is glossy, and the underparts tend to be paler. The naked head patches are different in arrangement. ''Acridotheres'' mynas are also much more terrestrial than ''Gracula''. Several species have frontal crests which become covered with pollen when the birds take nectar from flowers, and may play a role in pollination.

Behaviour

They have bowing courtship displays, whereas ''Gracula'' has no visual display. They lay unmarked pale blue eggs. Like most starlings, the ''Acridotheres'' mynas are fairly

omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...

, eating

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualist ...

and

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 pa ...

Systematics

The genus ''Acridotheres'' was introduced by the French ornithologist

Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collec ...

in 1816. 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 specim ...

was subsequently designated as the common myna. The name ''Acridotheres'' 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 pe ...

words ''akridos'' "locust" and ''-thēras'' "-hunter". Despite being both called "mynas", the ''Acridotheres'' mynas are closer related to a group of mainly terrestrial starlings from

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

, such as the

common starling The common starling or European starling (''Sturnus vulgaris''), also known simply as the starling in Great Britain and Ireland, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about long and has glossy black plumage ...

, and also

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n ones like the ''

Lamprotornis ''Lamprotornis'' is a large genus of glossy- starlings all of which occur in Africa south of the Sahara. They have glossy blue or green upper parts, which is due to hollow melanin granules arranged in a single layer near the feather barbule's su ...

'' glossy-starlings. Among these, they are among the larger and duller species; they seem to be one of the major groups to evolve most recently. Apparently, they all arose from ancestors which arrived from

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

and adapted to more

humid Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. Humidity depe ...

conditions in the

Tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also refer ...

. They presumably were isolated in about their current range when the evolutionary radiation to which they belonged - including the wattled starling and the ''

Sturnia ''Sturnia'' is a genus of Asian birds in the family Sturnidae. It is sometimes merged with ''Sturnus''.Clements, J. (2007). ''The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World.'' 6th edition. Christopher Helm. Species The old genus' placement w ...

'' species - was fragmented by

desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused ...

at the start of the

Early Pliocene Early may refer to: History * The beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods, e.g.: ** Early Christianity ** Early modern Europe Places in the United States * Early, Iowa * Early, Texas * ...

, as Earth turned towards the last ice age 5 million years ago.

Species

The genus contains 10 species: *

Great myna The great myna (''Acridotheres grandis''), also known as the white-vented myna, is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in Northeast India, through Bangladesh to Southeast Asia. Description It is black with elongated for ...

, ''Acridotheres grandis'' *

Crested myna The crested myna (''Acridotheres cristatellus''), also known as the Chinese starling, is a species of starling in the genus ''Acridotheres'' native to southeastern China and Indochina.Feare, C., Craig, A., Croucher, B., Shields, C., Komolphalin, ...

, ''Acridotheres cristatellus'' *

Javan myna The Javan myna (''Acridotheres javanicus''), also known as the white-vented myna, is a species of myna. It is a member of the starling family. It is native to Bali and Java. It has been introduced to other Asian countries, and as far away as Puer ...

, ''Acridotheres javanicus'' * Pale-bellied myna, ''Acridotheres cinereus'' *

Jungle myna The jungle myna (''Acridotheres fuscus'') is a myna, a member of the starling family. It is found patchily distributed across much of the mainland of the Indian Subcontinent but absent in the arid zones of India. It is easily recognized by the t ...

, ''Acridotheres fuscus'' * Collared myna, ''Acridotheres albocinctus'' * Bank myna, ''Acridotheres ginginianus'' * Common myna, ''Acridotheres tristis'' * Black-winged starling, ''Acridotheres melanopterus'' * Vinous-breasted starling, ''Acridotheres burmannicus'' Two other species, the red-billed starling (''Spodiopsar sericeus'') and the white-cheeked starling (''Spodiopsar cineraceus''), are probably basal in the group and might even be closer to ''

''. The relationships of the

white-faced starling The white-faced starling (''Sturnornis albofrontatus'') is a member of the starling family of birds. It is an endemic resident breeder in Sri Lanka. It was for a long time erroneously known as ''S. senex''; this was eventually identified as a ju ...

(''Sturornis albofrontatus'') are more unclear, but it is generally not held to be close to the present genus.

References

* Feare, Chris & Craig, Adrian (1999): ''Starlings and Mynas''. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-7136-3961-X * Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol, Inskipp, Tim & Byers, Clive (1999): ''Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives''. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. * Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). '' Zool. Scripta'' 35(2): 149–186. (HTML abstract) * Zuccon, Dario; Cibois, Anne; Pasquet, Eric & Ericson, Per G.P. (2006): Nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data reveal the major lineages of starlings, mynas and related taxa. ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' 41(2): 333–344. (HTML abstract) {{Taxonbar, from=Q136358 Bird genera Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot