The red-billed starling (''Spodiopsar sericeus'') is a species of

starling Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine (perching) birds known for the often dark, glossy iridescent sheen of their plumage; their complex vocalizations including mimicking; and their distinctive, often elaborate swarming behavior, know ...

in the family Sturnidae. It is found in south and southeastern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Taxonomy

The red-billed starling was

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

in 1789 by the German naturalist

Johann Friedrich Gmelin Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German natural history, naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist. Education Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp F ...

in his revised and expanded edition of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

's ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

''. He placed it with the starlings in the

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 ...

Sturnus ''Sturnus'' is a genus of starlings. As discussed below, the Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of this group is complex, and other authorities differ considerably in which species they place in this genus, and in the species boundaries within ''Stur ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Sturnus sericeus''. The specific epithet ''sericeus'' is

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

meaning "silken". Gmelin based his account on the "silk starling" from China that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist Peter Brown from a specimen owned by the collector

Marmaduke Tunstall Marmaduke Tunstall (1743 – 11 October 1790) was an England, English ornithologist and collector. He was the author of ''Ornithologia Britannica'' (1771), probably the first British work to use binomial nomenclature. Tunstall was born at Burto ...

. The red-billed starling was formerly placed in 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 published in 2008 found that the genus 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 reoganization to create

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genera, the red-billed starling and the

white-cheeked starling The white-cheeked starling or grey starling (''Spodiopsar cineraceus'') is a passerine bird of the starling family. It is native to eastern Asia where it is a common and well-known bird in much of its range. Taxonomy The white-cheeked starling wa ...

were moved to the resurrected genus ''

Spodiopsar ''Spodiopsar'' is a genus of Asian birds in the family Sturnidae. Taxonomy The genus ''Spodiopsar'' was introduced in 1889 by the English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe. The name was to replace ''Poliopsar'', introduced by Sharpe in 1888, w ...

'' that had been introduced in 1889 by

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English people, English zoologist and ornithology, ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his car ...

. The species is

: no

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised. White-cheeked Starling perching on a rock

References

red-billed starling Birds of South China Birds of Hong Kong Birds of Hainan red-billed starling red-billed starling Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Sturnidae-stub