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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), or, in Anglophone Europe, simply Robin, is a small insectivorous passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher (Muscicapidae). Around 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 in) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north.
The term Robin is also applied to some unrelated birds with red breasts. The European Robin was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae, under the name of Motacilla rubecula.[2] Its specific epithet rubecula is a diminutive derived from the Latin ruber 'red'.[3] The genus Erithacus was created by French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1800, giving the bird its current binomial name of E. rubecula.[4]
The distinctive red breast of both sexes led to the European Robin's original name of redbreast. In the fifteenth century, when it became popular to give human names to familiar species, the bird came to be known as Robin redbreast, which was eventually shortened to Robin. In American literature of the late 19th century, this robin was frequently called the English Robin. The Frisian robyntsje or robynderke is similar to the English name, while Dutch Roodborstje and French Rougegorge both refer to the distinctive red front.The Robin belongs to a group of mainly insectivorous birds that have been variously assigned to the thrushes or "flycatchers", depending on how these groups were perceived taxonomically. Eventually, the flycatcher-thrush assemblage was re-analysed and the genus Erithacus assigned to a group of thrush-like true flycatchers, the tribe Saxicolini, that also includes the nightingale and the Old World chats. |
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