Orioles are colourful Old World passerine birds in the genus Oriolus, the type genus of the corvoidean family Oriolidae. They are not closely related to the New World orioles, which are icterids (family Icteridae) that belong to the superfamily Passeroidea.
The genus Oriolus was erected in 1766 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the 12th edition of his Systema Naturae.[1] The type species is, by tautonomy, Oriolus galbula Linnaeus, 1766. This is a junior synonym of Coracias oriolus Linnaeus, 1758, the Eurasian golden oriole.[2] In 1760, French ornithologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his Ornithologie used Oriolus as a subdivision of the genus Turdus,[3] but the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled in 1955 that "Oriolus Brisson, 1760" should be suppressed.[4] Linnaeus added more than a dozen additional genera when he updated his 10th edition, but he generally based new genera on those that had been introduced by Brisson in his Ornithologie. Oriolus is now the only genus for which Linnaeus's 12th edition is cited as the original publication.[5] The name is derived from the old French word oriol, which is echoic in origin, derived from the call of the bird,[6] but some authors have suggested origins in classical Latin aureolus meaning "golden". Various forms of "oriole" have existed in Romance languages since the 12th and 13th centuries.
The genus contains 32 species:[7]
| Image | Common Name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oriolus szalayi | New Guinea | ||
| Oriolus phaeochromus | North Maluku | ||
| Oriolus forsteni | Seram | ||
| Oriolus bouroensis | Buru Island | ||
| Oriolus decipiens | Tanimbar Islands | ||
| Timor oriole | Oriolus melanotis | Timor, Rote and Semau Islands | |
| Wetar oriole | Oriolus finschi | Wetar and Atauro Islands | |
| Oriolus sagittatus | eastern Australia and south-central New Guinea. | ||
| Oriolus flavocinctus | Australia and New Guinea | ||
| Oriolus xanthonotus | Southeast Asia through Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Bangka, Java and southwestern Borneo | ||
| Oriolus consobrinus | Borneo and the Philippines | ||
| Oriolus steerii | the Philippines | ||
| Oriolus albiloris | Luzon Island (the Philippines) | ||
| Oriolus isabellae | Luzon | ||
| Oriolus oriolus | Europe and western Asia, and spends the winter season in central and southern Africa | ||
| Oriolus kundoo | Indian subcontinent and Central Asia | ||
| Oriolus auratus | Africa south of the Sahara desert | ||
| Oriolus tenuirostris | eastern Himalayas to Southeast Asia | ||
| Oriolus chinensis | eastern Siberia, Ussuriland, northeastern China, Korea and northern Vietnam | ||
| Oriolus chlorocephalus | eastern Africa | ||
| Oriolus crassirostris | island of São Tomé | ||
| Oriolus brachyrynchus | Africa. | ||
| Oriolus monacha | north-eastern Africa | ||
| Oriolus percivali | Democratic Republic of Congo to central Kenya and western Tanzania | ||
| Oriolus larvatus | Africa | ||
| Oriolus nigripennis | Sierra Leone and Liberia to southern South Sudan, western Uganda, central Democratic Republic of Congo and north-western Angola | ||
| Oriolus xanthornus | tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka east to Indonesia | ||
| Oriolus hosii | Sarawak in Borneo | ||
| Oriolus consanguineus | Indonesia and Malaysia | ||
| Oriolus cruentus | Indonesia | ||
| Oriolus traillii | Southeast Asia | ||
| Oriolus mellianus | southern China and winters in mainland Southeast Asia | ||
Formerly, some authorities also considered these species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Oriolus:
The orioles are a mainly tropical group, although one species, the Eurasian golden oriole, breeds in temperate regions.