''Uropsalis'' is a genus of South American

nightjar Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called bugeaters, their primary source of food ...

s in the nightjar family Caprimulgidae.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Uropsalis'' was introduced in 1915 by the American ornithologist

Waldron DeWitt Miller Waldron may refer to: People *Waldron (surname) *Waldron Fox-Decent (1937–2019), Canadian academic and political scientist *Waldron Smithers (1880–1954), British politician *Mal Waldron (1925–2002), American jazz pianist, composer and arrange ...

with ''Hydropsalis lyra'' Bonaparte, 1850, the lyre-tailed nightjar, 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 ...

ουρα/''oura'' meaning "tail" and ψαλις/''psalis'', ψαλιδος/''psalidos'' meaning "pair of scissors" or "shears". The genus contains two species:

References

Bird genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{caprimulgiformes-stub