Colinus is a genus of in the New World quail family, Odontophoridae. Members of the genus are commonly known as bobwhites.
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 Carl Linnaeus, 1758, the northern bobwhite, which is the
type species by
monotypy.
The genus name come from the
Nahuatl language
Zölin meaning "quail".
Species
The genus contains four species.
Fossil species
-
† Colinus eatoni
-
† Colinus suilium Brodkorb 1959
-
† Colinus hibbardi Wetmore 1944
