The bird genus ''Balearica'' (also called the crowned cranes or Balearic cranes) contains two extant species in the crane family Gruidae: the black crowned crane (''B. pavonina'') and the

grey crowned crane The grey crowned crane or gray crowned crane (''Balearica regulorum''), also known as the African crowned crane, golden crested crane, golden crowned crane, East African crane, East African crowned crane, African crane, Eastern crowned crane, ...

(''B. regulorum''). The species today occur only in Africa, south of the

Sahara Desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

, and are the only cranes that can nest in trees. This habitat is one reason the relatively small ''Balearica'' cranes are believed to closely resemble the ancestral members of the Gruidae. Like all cranes, they eat

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s, and small

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Balearica'' was erected by the French zoologist

Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosophy, natural philosopher. Brisson was born on 30 April 1723 at Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée department of western France. Note that page 14 ...

in 1760 with the black crowned crane (''Balearica pavonina'') as 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 ...

. The name is from the Latin ''Baliaricus'' for "of the Balearic Islands". The crane family (Gruidae) is divided into the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Gruinae of typical cranes and the subfamily Balearicinae of crowned cranes.

Extant species

Fossil record

Crowned cranes seem to have been more widespread prehistorically. Compared to the true cranes, genus '' Grus'', which were always common in the

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

and adjacent regions, the present genus appears to have had a more Atlantic distribution, ranging into Europe and North America; it is not known from the fossil record of Asia and South America, as none have yet been discovered. *''Balearica rummeli'' (Early Miocene of Germany) – formerly ''Basityto'' *''Balearica excelsa'' (Early–Middle Miocene of France) – formerly ''Grus'' and ''Ornithocnemus'' *''Balearica exigua'' (Miocene of Nebraska)

References

Bird genera Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa {{Gruiformes-stub