Merops (genus)

Merops is a large genus of bee-eaters, a group of near passerine birds in the family Meropidae. The members of this Old World family are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies and usually elongated central tail feathers. They predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and hornets, which are caught in the air.

Merops
Six common African Merops bee-eaters
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Coraciiformes
Family:	Meropidae
Genus:	Merops Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Merops apiaster Linnaeus, 1758
Species
see text

All bee-eaters are in the genus Merops and subfamily Meropinae except for three Asiatic bearded bee-eaters in the subfamily Nyctyornithinae (in genera Nyctyornis and Meropogon). The genus Merops was introduced by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[1] The type species is the European bee-eater.[2] The genus name is Ancient Greek for "bee-eater".[3]

Taxonomy and systematics

Twenty-four species are recognized:[4]

Merops boehmi           Merops muelleri     Merops m. mentalis         Merops gularis     M. g. australis             Merops oreobates     Merops hirundineus           Merops pusillus     M. p. meridionalis       Merops variegatus                         Merops ornatus     Merops apiaster           Merops persicus     Merops superciliosus       Merops philippinus             Merops viridis     Merops leschenaulti       Merops orientalis         Merops nubicus       Merops malimbicus       Merops albicollis         Merops breweri         Merops bulocki     Merops bullockoides         Meropogon       Nyctyornis

Bayesian consensus phylogeny based on nuclear and mitochondrial sequences of Meropidae (missing only Nyctyornis athertoni and M. revolii)[5]

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Black-headed bee-eater	Merops breweri	Angola, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Sudan.
	Blue-headed bee-eater	Merops muelleri	Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Kenya
	Blue-moustached bee-eater	Merops mentalis	Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
	Black bee-eater	Merops gularis	from Sierra Leone to southeast Nigeria
	Swallow-tailed bee-eater	Merops hirundineus	sub-Saharan Africa
	Little bee-eater	Merops pusillus	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Blue-breasted bee-eater	Merops variegatus	Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon
	Cinnamon-chested bee-eater	Merops oreobates	Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
	Red-throated bee-eater	Merops bulocki	Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, and Uganda.
	White-fronted bee-eater	Merops bullockoides	sub-equatorial Africa.
	Somali bee-eater	Merops revoilii	Ethiopia, through Somalia to northern and eastern Kenya
	White-throated bee-eater	Merops albicollis	southern Senegal to Uganda.
	Böhm's bee-eater	Merops boehmi	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia.
	Green bee-eater	Merops orientalis	sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and the Gambia to Ethiopia, the Nile valley, western Arabia and Asia through India to Vietnam
	Blue-cheeked bee-eater	Merops persicus	Northern Africa, and the Middle East from eastern Turkey to Kazakhstan and India
	Olive bee-eater	Merops superciliosus	Angola; Botswana; Burundi; Comoros; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Kenya; Madagascar; Malawi; Mayotte; Mozambique; Namibia; Rwanda; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan; Tanzania; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe
	Blue-tailed bee-eater	Merops philippinus	southeastern Asia.
	Rainbow bee-eater	Merops ornatus	Australia, New Guinea, and some of the southern islands of Indonesia.
	Blue-throated bee-eater	Merops viridis	south-east Asia
	Chestnut-headed bee-eater	Merops leschenaulti	India east to Southeast Asia.
	European bee-eater	Merops apiaster	southern Europe and in parts of north Africa and western Asia.
	Rosy bee-eater	Merops malimbicus	Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo.
	Northern carmine bee-eater	Merops nubicus	Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda.
	Southern carmine bee-eater	Merops nubicoides	KwaZulu-Natal and Namibia to Gabon, the eastern DRCongo and Kenya.

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Merops:

• Magpie-lark (as Merops picatus)

References

1. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Volume 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii. p. 117.
2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-list of Birds of the World. Volume 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 233.
3. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
4. "IOC World Bird List 7.1". IOC World Bird List Datasets. doi:10.14344/ioc.ml.7.1.
5. Marks, Ben D.; Weckstein, Jason D.; Moyle, Robert G. (2007). "Molecular phylogenetics of the bee-eaters (Aves: Meropidae) based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence data". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 45: 23–32. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.07.004. PMID 17716922.