''Nycticorax'' 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 ...

of night herons. The name ''Nycticorax'' means "night raven" and derives from 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 p ...

νύκτος, ''nuktos'' "night" and κοραξ, ''korax'', "raven". It refers to the largely nocturnal feeding habits of this group 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 lightweig ...

s, and the croaking crow-like call of the best known species, the black-crowned night heron. These are medium-sized herons which often are migratory in the colder parts of their ranges. Adults are short-necked, relatively short-legged and stout herons; the two extant species both have a black crown and a whitish belly, while the wings, chest, neck and auriculars are grey or

rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish-red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a dia ...

depending on the species. Young birds are brown, flecked with white and grey, and are quite similar to each other in the extant species. At least some of the extinct

Mascarenes The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Thei ...

taxa appear to have retained this juvenile plumage in adult birds. Night herons nest in

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

on platforms of sticks in a group of trees, or on the ground in protected locations such as islands or reed beds. Three to eight

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are laid. They stand at the water's edge, and wait to ambush prey, mainly at night. They primarily eat small

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 ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

s, aquatic

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 small mammals. During the day they rest in trees or bushes.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Nycticorax'' was introduced in 1817 by the English naturalist Thomas Forster to accommodate the black-crowned night heron. The epithet ''nycticorax'' is from

and combines ''nux'', ''nuktos'' meaning "night" and ''korax'' meaning "raven". The word was used by authors such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

and

Hesychius of Miletus Hesychius of Miletus ( el, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Μιλήσιος, translit=Hesychios o Milesios), Greek chronicler and biographer, surnamed Illustrius, son of an advocate, lived in Constantinople in the 6th century AD during the reign of Justinian ...

for a "bird of ill omen", perhaps an owl. The word was used by the Swiss naturalist

Conrad Gessner Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...

in 1555 and then by subsequent authors for the black-crowned night heron. The genus now contains just two species. In addition to the species listed below, the night herons of the genera ''

Nyctanassa ''Nyctanassa'' is a genus of night herons from the Americas, especially (but not exclusively) warmer coastal regions. They were formerly included in the genus ''Nycticorax'', but today all major authorities recognize them as different. The nam ...

'' and ''

Gorsachius ''Gorsachius'' is a genus of Old World night herons typically found near water in forested regions. These are medium-sized herons which are migratory in the colder parts of their ranges, but otherwise resident. They are the least known, most st ...

'' were formerly placed in ''Nycticorax''.

Extant species

Extinct species and fossils

* Rodrigues night heron, ''Nycticorax megacephalus'' ( extinct) * Réunion night heron, ''Nycticorax duboisi'' ( extinct) * Mauritius night heron, ''Nycticorax mauritianus'' ( extinct) * Ascension night heron, ''Nycticorax olsoni'' ( extinct) *

Niue night heron The Niue night heron (''Nycticorax kalavikai'') is an extinct night heron species that was endemism, endemic to the island of Niue in West Polynesia. History The night heron was described in 2000 from subfossil bones collected in January 1995 b ...

, ''Nycticorax kalavikai'' ( prehistoric) * ʻEua night heron, ''Nycticorax'' sp. ( prehistoric) * Lifuka night heron, ''Nycticorax'' sp. ( prehistoric) – may be same as ʻEua species In addition, the following taxa are known from fossil bones: * ''Nycticorax'' sp. (Early Oligocene of Fayyum, Egypt) (

fossil 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 ...

) * ''Nycticorax'''' fidens'' (Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

of McGehee Farm, US) (

)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q133003 Bird genera Extant Rupelian first appearances Rupelian genus first appearances Taxa named by Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster