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.[1] The type species was subsequently designated as the common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) by English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1840.[2] [3] The genus name comes from the specific name Gracula quiscula coined by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus for the common grackle.[4] 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.[5]
The genus contains six extant species and one extinct species:[6]
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiscalus major | Florida and the coastal Southeastern United States | ||
| Quiscalus quiscula | North America | ||
| Quiscalus mexicanus | northwestern Venezuela and western Colombia and Ecuador in the south to Minnesota in the north, to Oregon, Idaho, and California in the west, to Florida in the east, with vagrants occurring as far north as southern Canada | ||
| †Quiscalus palustris | Slender-billed grackle | endemic of central Mexico, namely Valley of Mexico and Toluca Valley (extinct around 1910) | |
| Quiscalus nicaraguensis | Nicaragua and northernmost Costa Rica | ||
| Quiscalus niger | the Greater Antilles | ||
| Quiscalus lugubris | Colombia east to Venezuela and northeastern Brazil | ||