''Eurillas'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

greenbul The greenbuls are a group of birds within the bulbul family Pycnonotidae, found only within Africa. They are all largely drab olive-green above, and paler below, with few distinguishing features. The "aberrant greenbuls" of the genera '' Bernier ...

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

birds in the bulbul

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Pycnonotidae The bulbuls are members of a family (biology), family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized perching bird, passerine songbirds, which also includes greenbuls, brownbuls, leafloves, and bristlebills. The family is distributed across most of Africa and in ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Eurillas'' was introduced in 1899 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser with the

little greenbul The little greenbul (''Eurillas virens'') is a species of the bulbul family of passerine birds. It is found in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Taxonomy and systematics The little greenbul was originally described in the genus ''Andropadus'' an ...

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 genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''eurus'' meaning "broad" or "wide" and ''illas'' meaning "thrush". This genus was formerly synonymized with the genus ''

Andropadus The sombre greenbul (''Andropadus importunus'') is a member of the bulbul family of passerine birds. It is a resident breeder in coastal bush, evergreen forest and dry shrub land in eastern and southern Africa. It is the only member of the genus ...

''. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study of the bulbul family published in 2007 found that ''Andropadus'' was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

. In the revision to the generic classification five species were moved from ''Andropadus'' to the resurrected genus ''Eurillas''.

Species

The genus contains five species:

References

*Moyle, R. G., and B. D. Marks. 2006. Phylogenetic relationships of the bulbuls (Aves: Pycnonotidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40: 687–695. Greenbuls Birds of the African tropical rainforest Taxa named by Harry C. Oberholser {{Pycnonotidae-stub