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Wagtails are a group of passerine birds that form the genus Motacilla in the family Motacillidae. The common name and genus name are derived from their characteristic ...
The white wagtail (Motacilla alba) is a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae, which also includes pipits and longclaws. The species breeds in the Palearctic zone in most of Europe and Asia and parts of North Africa ; it also has a toehold in western Alaska as a scarce breeder.
The binomial name of the grey wagtail Motacilla cinerea was introduced by Marmaduke Tunstall in his 1771 publication Ornithologia Britannica. [2] [3] Motacilla is the Latin name for the pied wagtail; although actually a diminutive of motare, "to move about", from medieval times it led to the misunderstanding of cilla as "tail".
The western yellow wagtail was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under its current binomial name Motacilla flava. [3] In 1555 the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner had used the identical Latin name Motacilla Flava when describing this species in his book, Historia ...
The white-browed wagtail is the largest species of wagtail at 21 cm (8.3 in) length. It is a slender bird, with the characteristic long, constantly wagging tail of its genus. It has black upperparts, head and breast, with a white supercilium and large white wingbar. Unlike white wagtails it never has white on the forehead. The rest of the ...
The scientific binomial for the African pied wagtail is Motacilla aguimp; Motacilla, the name of the genus containing all but the forest wagtail of Asia, is from the Latin for a "little mover", while the specific name aguimp is the native name of the species "Les Namaquois les appellent a-guimp, nom composé de deux syllabes précédées chacune d'un clappement de langue, et qui signifie ...
The eastern yellow wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis) is a small passerine in the wagtail family Motacillidae, which also includes the pipits and longclaws. It was often classified as a subspecies of the Western yellow wagtail. It breeds in the eastern Palearctic and Alaska and migrates to South Asia and Australia.
It is a slender, 15.5–17 cm long bird, with the long, constantly wagging tail characteristic of the genus Motacilla.The adult male in breeding plumage is basically grey or black above, with white on the remiges, and bright yellow below and on the entire head except for the black nape.