''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the

grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae. Grouse are presently assigned to the tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetraonidae), a classification supported by mitochondria ...

subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse.

Taxonomy

The

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 ...

''Tetrao'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...

in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae''. The genus name is the

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 ...

word for a game bird, probably a

black grouse The black grouse (''Lyrurus tetrix''), also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in moorland and step ...

. The black grouse was included by Linnaeus in the genus ''Tetrao'' but is now placed in the genus ''

Lyrurus ''Lyrurus'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily. They are known as black grouse because the male's plumage of both species is colored black as its base colour. Taxonomy The genus ''Lyrurus'' was introduced in 1832 by the English natural ...

''. 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 as the

western capercaillie The western capercaillie (''Tetrao urogallus''), also known as the Eurasian capercaillie, wood grouse, heather cock, cock-of-the-woods, or simply capercaillie , is a heavy member of the grouse family and the largest of all extant grouse species. ...

(''Tetrao urogallus'') by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

in 1840.

Species

The genus contains two species: The

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

of this genus is extensive: * '' Tetrao conjugens'' (Early Pliocene of C Europe) * '' Tetrao rhodopensis'' (Early Pliocene of Dorkovo, Bulgaria) * '' Tetrao partium'' (Early Pliocene - Early Pleistocene of SE Europe) * '' Tetrao macropus'' (Late Pliocene - Early Pleistocene of Hungary) * '' Tetrao praeurogallus'' (Early - Middle Pleistocene of E Europe)

References

Bird genera {{Galliformes-stub ru:Тетерева