catbird

Dictionary: cat·bird (kăt'bûrd') pronunciation

n.
A North American songbird (Dumetella carolinensis) having predominantly slate plumage.

[From the resemblance of one of its calls to the mewing of a cat.]

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: catbird

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Any of several passerine species (family Mimidae) named for their mewing calls, which they use in addition to song. The North American catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) is 9 in. (23 cm) long and gray with a black cap. It is found in gardens and thickets. The black catbird (Melanoptila glabrirostris) is found in coastal Yucatán. Three species of the bowerbird family are also called catbirds; they are found in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands and do not build bowers but hold territories in the forest by loud singing.

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WordNet: catbird

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: any of various birds of the Australian region whose males build ornamented structures resembling bowers in order to attract females
Synonym: bowerbird

Meaning #2: North American songbird whose call resembles a cat's mewing
Synonyms: gray catbird, Dumetella carolinensis

Wikipedia: Catbird

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For other uses, see Catbird (disambiguation).

White-eared Catbird

Gray Catbird

Several unrelated groups of songbirds are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat's meowing. The genus name Ailuroedus likewise is from the Greek for "cat-singer" or "cat-voiced".^[1]

Australasian catbirds are the genera Ailuroedus and the monotypic Scenopooetes. They belong to the bowerbird family (Ptilonorhynchidae) of the basal songbirds:

White-eared Catbird, Ailuroedus buccoides
Spotted Catbird, Ailuroedus melanotis
Green Catbird, Ailuroedus crassirostris
Tooth-billed Catbird, Scenopooetes dentirostris

New World catbirds are two monotypic genera from the mimid family (Mimidae) of the passeridan superfamily Muscicapoidea. Among the Mimidae, they represent independent basal lineages probably closer to the Caribbean thrasher and trembler assemblage than to the mockingbirds and Toxostoma thrashers:^[2]

Gray Catbird, Dumetella carolinensis
Black Catbird, Melanoptila glabrirostris

The Abyssinian Catbird (Parophasma galinieri) represents a monotypic genus from Africa. It is tentatively placed in the Old World babbler family (Timaliidae) of the passeridan superfamily Sylvioidea, but possibly closer to the typical warblers of the Sylviidae.

Footnotes

^ Rowland (2008): pp.7,31
^ Hunt et al. (2001), Barber et al. (2004)

References

Barber, Brian R.; Martínez-Gómez, Juan E. & Peterson, A. Townsend (2004): Systematic position of the Socorro mockingbird Mimodes graysoni. J. Avian Biol. 35: 195-198. doi:10.1111/j.0908-8857.2004.03233.x PDF fulltext
Hunt, Jeffrey S.; Bermingham, Eldredge; & Ricklefs, Robert E. (2001): Molecular systematics and biogeography of Antillean thrashers, tremblers, and mockingbirds (Aves: Mimidae). Auk 118(1): 35–55. DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2001)118[0035:MSABOA]2.0.CO;2 PDF fulltext
Rowland, Peter (2008): Bowerbirds. CSIRO Publishing. ISBN 0643094202 Excerpt at Google Books

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Copyrights:

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Catbird". Read more