''Spodiopsar'' 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 ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s in the family Sturnidae.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Spodiopsar'' was introduced in 1889 by the English ornithologist

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 name was to replace ''Poliopsar'', introduced by Sharpe in 1888, which was preoccupied by ''Poliopsar'' Cassin, 1867. Sharpe subsequently designated 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 ...

as ''Sturnus sericeus'' J.F. Gmelin, 1789, the

red-billed starling The red-billed starling (''Spodiopsar sericeus'') is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in south and southeastern China. Taxonomy The red-billed starling was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Fri ...

. 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 ...

''spodios'' meaning "ash-coloured" and ''psar'' meaning "starling". The genus contains two species.

References

Bird genera {{sturnidae-stub