cisticola

Dec. 18th, 2023 07:53 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
Theme week! -- back to birbs. These won't be as amusing as the previous couple birb weeks, but there's still some odd ones:


cisticola (si-STIK-uh-luh) - n., any of a few dozen species (genus Cisticola) of small, mostly African, insectivorous birds.


We met one in the form of the neddicky, but there's about 50 others, including the type species, the zitting cisticola (C. juncidis) -- and that's a name that makes me go wait, what?

zitting cisticola zitting on zee branch
Thanks, WikiMedia!

Also called fantail-warblers (though they look like warblers, they're actually more closely related to swifts) and tailor-birds (for their large woven nests). Here's a complete list of cisticolas. The name was coined by German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829 from Ancient Greek kisthos, rock-rose + Latin colere, to dwell.

---L.

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