''Sericulus'' is a genus of brightly colored
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 generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...
birds belonging to the bowerbird family
Ptilonorhynchidae
Bowerbirds () make up the bird family (biology), family Ptilonorhynchidae. They are renowned for their unique courtship behaviour, where males build a structure and decorate it with sticks and brightly coloured objects in an attempt to attract a ...
. They are found in
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
and eastern Australia.
Birds in this genus build "avenue-type" bowers which consist of two parallel walls made of vertical sticks and pieces of grass.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Sericulus'' was introduced in 1825 by the English zoologist
William Swainson
William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist.
Life
Swains ...
for the species ''Meliphaga chrysocephalus'', the
regent bowerbird
The regent bowerbird (''Sericulus chrysocephalus'') is a medium-sized, up to 25 cm long, sexually dimorphic bowerbird. The male bird is black with a golden orange-yellow crown, mantle and black-tipped wing feathers. It has yellow bill, black ...
, that had been formally described by
John Lewin
John William Lewin (1770 – 27 August 1819) was an English-born artist active in Australia from 1800. The first professional artist of the colony of New South Wales, he illustrated the earliest volumes of Australian natural history. Many of his ...
in 1808. ''Meliphaga chrysocephalus'' therefore becomes the
type species
In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...
by
monotypy
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...
. The genus name is a diminutive of the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
σηρικον/''sērikon'' meaning "silk".
Species
The genus contains four species.
References
Bird genera
Taxa named by William Swainson
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