Lilac kingfishers are

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s in the genus ''Cittura'', found in the lowlands of the

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 ...

island of

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu ...

and the neighbouring Sangihe and

Talaud Islands The Talaud Islands ( Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Talaud'') also spelled Talaur or Talaut, are a group of islands situated about 225 miles (360 km) northeast of Sulawesi, in Indonesia, north-east of the Sangihe Islands. The Talaud Islands are als ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Cittura'' was introduced by the German naturalist

Johann Jakob Kaup Johann Jakob von Kaup (10 April 1803 – 4 July 1873) was a German naturalist. A proponent of natural philosophy, he believed in an innate mathematical order in nature and he attempted biological classifications based on the Quinarian system. Kau ...

in 1848. The genus name is from classical Greek ''kitta'' for "magpie" and ''oura'' for "tail". There are two

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

: * ''C. sanghirensis'' Sharpe, 1868 – Sangihe and

–

Sangihe lilac kingfisher The Sangihe lilac kingfisher (''Cittura sanghirensis'') is a species of kingfisher in the genus '' Cittura'', endemic to the lowlands of the Indonesian island of Sangihe. It was previously considered a subspecies of the Sulawesi lilac kingfish ...

* ''C. cyanotis'' (Temminck, 1824) – northern

and Lembeh Island –

Sulawesi lilac kingfisher The Sulawesi lilac kingfisher (''Cittura cyanotis'') is a species of kingfisher in the genus ''Cittura'', found in the lowlands of the Indonesia island of Sulawesi and Lembeh. Taxonomy The specific epithet ''cyanotis'' is from classical Greek ' ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10748935 Cittura Taxa named by Johann Jakob Kaup