Colinus

Colinus is a genus of birds in the New World quail family, Odontophoridae. Members of the genus are commonly known as bobwhites.^[1]

Bobwhite
Colinus virginianus
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Galliformes
Family:	Odontophoridae
Genus:	Colinus Goldfuss, 1820
Type species
Perdrix mexicanus=Tetrao virginianus Linnaeus, 1758 northern bobwhite
Species
Colinus cristatus Colinus leucopogon Colinus nigrogularis Colinus virginianus[1]

Taxonomy

The genus Colinus was introduced in 1820 by the German naturalist Georg August Goldfuss to accommodate a single species, Perdrix mexicanus, a junior synonym of Tetrao virginiatus Linnaeus, 1758, the northern bobwhite, which is the type species by monotypy.^[2][3] The genus name come from the Nahuatl language Zölin meaning "quail".^[4]

Species

The genus contains four species.^[5]

Genus Colinus – Goldfuss, 1820 – four species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Crested bobwhite	Colinus cristatus (Linnaeus, 1766)		Size: 22 cm Habitat: open scrubland Diet:	LC
Spot-bellied bobwhite	Colinus leucopogon (Lesson, 1842)	El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica	Size: 23 cm Habitat: open scrubland Diet:	LC
Yucatan bobwhite, black-throated bobwhite	Colinus nigrogularis (Gould, 1843)		Size: 22 cm Habitat: henequen and sisal landscape Diet:	LC
Northern bobwhite	Colinus virginianus (Linnaeus, 1758)		Size: 25 cm Habitat: prairies, farmland, woodlands Diet:	NT

Fossil species

• †Colinus eatoni
• †Colinus suilium Brodkorb 1959
• †Colinus hibbardi Wetmore 1944