Quiscalus

The avian genus Quiscalus contains seven of the 11 species of grackles, gregarious passerine birds in the icterid family. They are native to North and South America.

The genus was named and described by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The type species was subsequently designated as the common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) by English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1840. The genus name comes from the specific name Gracula quiscula coined by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus for the common grackle. From where Linnaeus obtained the word is uncertain, but it may come from the Taíno word quisqueya, meaning "mother of all lands", for the island of Hispaniola.

The genus contains six extant species and one extinct species:

Image	Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
File:Quiscalus major -Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, Florida, USA -male-8.jpg	Quiscalus major	Boat-tailed grackle	Florida and the coastal Southeastern United States
File:Quiscalus-quiscula-001.jpg	Quiscalus quiscula	Common grackle	North America
File:Quiscalus mexicanusMPCCA20061226-0567B.jpg	Quiscalus mexicanus	Great-tailed grackle	northwestern Venezuela and western Colombia and Ecuador in the south to Minnesota in the north, to Oregon, Idaho, and California in the west, to Florida in the east, with vagrants occurring as far north as southern Canada
File:QuiscalusTenuirostris.jpg	†Quiscalus palustris	Slender-billed grackle	endemic of central Mexico, namely Valley of Mexico and Toluca Valley (extinct around 1910)
File:Thirsty (8387794451).jpg	Quiscalus nicaraguensis	Nicaraguan grackle	Nicaragua and northernmost Costa Rica
File:Quiscalus niger -Ciego de Avila Province, Cuba-8 (3).jpg	Quiscalus niger	Greater Antillean grackle	the Greater Antilles
File:Quiscalus lugubris.jpg	Quiscalus lugubris	Carib grackle	Colombia east to Venezuela and northeastern Brazil

External links

• Quiscalus videos, photos and sounds on the Internet Bird Collection

Template:Icteridae-stub