The grass warblers are small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

birds belonging to 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 ...

''Locustella''. Formerly placed in the paraphyletic "

Old World warbler Old World warblers are a large group of birds formerly grouped together in the bird family Sylviidae. The family held over 400 species in over 70 genera, and were the source of much taxonomic confusion. Two families were split out initially, the ci ...

" assemblage, they are now considered the northernmost representatives of a largely Gondwanan family, the Locustellidae. These are rather drab brownish "warblers" usually associated with fairly open grassland, shrubs or marshes. Some are streaked, others plain, all are difficult to view. They are insectivorous. The most characteristic feature of this group is that the song of several species is a mechanical

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 ...

-like reeling which gives rise to the group's scientific name. Species breeding in temperate regions are strongly migratory.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Locustella'' was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829 with the common grasshopper warbler (''Locustella naevia'') as 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 ...

. The genus name ''Locustella'' is from

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 ...

and is a diminutive of ''locusta'', "grasshopper". Like the English name, this refers to the insect-like song of some species. There are 23 species placed in the genus: * Lanceolated warbler, ''Locustella lanceolata'' * Brown bush warbler, ''Locustella luteoventris'' * Long-billed bush warbler, ''Locustella major'' * Common grasshopper warbler, ''Locustella naevia'' * Chinese bush warbler, ''Locustella tacsanowskia'' * Bamboo warbler, ''Locustella alfredi'' * River warbler ''Locustella fluviatilis'' *

Savi's warbler Savi's warbler (''Locustella luscinioides'') is a species of Old World warbler in the grass warbler genus ''Locustella''. It breeds in Europe and the western Palearctic. It is migratory, wintering in northern and sub-Saharan Africa. This small ...

, ''Locustella luscinioides'' * Friendly bush warbler, ''Locustella accentor'' * Sulawesi bush warbler, ''Locustella castanea'' * Seram bush warbler, ''Locustella musculus'' * Buru bush warbler, ''Locustella disturbans'' *

Long-tailed bush warbler The long-tailed bush warbler (''Locustella caudata'') is a species of grass warbler (family Locustellidae). It was formerly included in the "Old World warbler Old World warblers are a large group of birds formerly grouped together in the bird f ...

, ''Locustella caudata'' * Baikal bush warbler, ''Locustella davidi'' * Spotted bush warbler, ''Locustella thoracica'' * West Himalayan bush warbler, ''Locustella kashmirensis '' *

Taiwan bush warbler The Taiwan bush warbler (''Locustella alishanensis'') is a species of Old World warbler in the family Locustellidae. It is found only in Taiwan. Its natural habitat is undergrowth and grassland in elevation. It was first recorded in 1917 and nam ...

, ''Locustella alishanensis'' * Russet bush warbler, ''Locustella mandelli'' * Dalat bush warbler, ''Locustella idonea'' *

Benguet bush warbler The Benguet bush warbler (''Locustella seebohmi''), also known as the Benguet grasshopper-warbler, is a songbird species. Formerly placed in the "Old World warbler" assemblage, it is now placed in the newly recognized family Locustellidae. ''L. ...

, ''Locustella seebohmi'' * Javan bush warbler, ''Locustella montis'' * Sichuan bush warbler, ''Locustella chengi'' * Taliabu bush warbler, ''Locustella portenta'' This genus formerly included additional species. A molecular phylogenetic study of the grassbird family Locustellidae published in 2018 found that the genus ''Locustella'' consisted of two distinct clades. The genus was split and six species were moved to the newly erected genus ''

Helopsaltes ''Helopsaltes'' is a genus of passerine birds in the grassbird family Locustellidae. A comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the grassbird family Locustellidae published in 2018 found that the genus '' Locustella'' consisted of two disti ...

''. A

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 ...

acrocoracoid from the Late Miocene (about 11 mya) of Rudabánya (NE

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

) is quite similar to this bone in the present genus.Bernor, R.L.; Kordos, L. & Rook, L. (eds)
Recent Advances on Multidisciplinary Research at Rudabánya, Late Miocene (MN9), Hungary: A compendium
". ''Paleontographica Italiana'' 89: 3-36. Given its rather early age (most

Passerida Passerida is, under the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, one of two parvorders contained within the suborder Passeri (standard taxonomic practice would place them at the rank of infraorder). While more recent research suggests that its sister parvorde ...

genera are not known until the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Sylvioidea Sylvioidea is a superfamily of passerine birds, one of at least three major clades within the Passerida along with the Muscicapoidea and Passeroidea. It contains about 1300 species including the Old World warblers, Old World babblers, swallows ...

at the least. As the grasshopper warblers are the only known locustellid warblers from Europe, it is still fairly likely that the bone piece belongs to a basal ''Locustella''.

References

Locustella {{Locustellidae-stub