Icteria, Icterus, Ikteros

It is not often that I get to see an oriole in the neighborhood so it was a pleasant surprise to see an immature male Baltimore Oriole (above), Icterus galbula, in the yard earlier this morning.

Orioles belong to the family Icteridae, that includes meadowlarks, cowbirds, grackles, blackbirds and bobolink, and are certainly the most brightly colored members of this family. Orioles get their name from the similarity in appearance to the Eurasian Golden Oriole, though I guess that is subject to personal interpretation. The word oriole coming from the Latin aureolus, meaning golden. The euro-asian orioles belong to a different family, Oriolidae, than our orioles.

The scientific name of our orioles is Icterus, from the Greek word ikteros for jaundice. This not only is a reference to the color (the Eurasian Golden Oriole is yellow) but also to the revelation that sighting this bird was suppose to cure a person with jaundice! Galbula, seems a peculiar word to describe the Baltimore Oriole, as it means ‘small yellow bird’. How many yellow(-ish) birds do we have that are bigger than a Baltimore? Not many, but there are certainly plenty that are smaller! Baltimore refers to the colors of the coat of arms of the founder of the state of Maryland, George Calvert, the Baron of Baltimore.

Another bird gets its name from ikteros, and that is the Yellow-breasted Chat (below), which belongs to a completely different family, Parulidae, the wood-warblers. There is even some debate as to whether it is even a wood-warbler, but that aside, it has the scientific name Icteria virens. Icteria comes from the same Greek word as for the oriole, and refers to the color of its ‘jaundice’ colored breast. Virens, comes from the Latin meaning green, for the greenish back.