Quiscalus


The avian genus Quiscalus contains seven of the 11 species of grackles, gregarious passerine birds in the icterid family. They are native to North and South America.
The genus was named and described by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The type species was subsequently designated as the common grackle by English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1840. The genus name comes from the specific name Gracula quiscula coined by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus for the common grackle. From where Linnaeus obtained the word is uncertain, but it may come from the Taíno word quisqueya, meaning "mother of all lands", for the island of Hispaniola.
The genus contains six extant species and one extinct species:
ImageScientific nameCommon nameDistribution
Quiscalus majorBoat-tailed grackleFlorida and the coastal Southeastern United States
Quiscalus quisculaCommon grackleNorth America
Quiscalus mexicanusGreat-tailed gracklenorthern regions of South America, through the western and central United states with vagrants occasionally into Canada
Quiscalus palustrisSlender-billed grackleendemic of central Mexico, namely Valley of Mexico and Toluca Valley
Quiscalus nicaraguensisNicaraguan grackleNicaragua and northernmost Costa Rica
Quiscalus nigerGreater Antillean gracklethe Greater Antilles
Quiscalus lugubrisCarib grackleColombia east to Venezuela and northeastern Brazil