Great Spotted Cuckoo

About the Great Spotted Cuckoo

The great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. It is widely spread throughout Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of corvids, in particular the Eurasian magpie.

In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the great spotted cuckoo in the second volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The Great Spotted Cuckow". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen that had been shot in Gibraltar and sent to the English naturalist Mark Catesby in London. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the great spotted cuckoo with the other cuckoos in the genus Cuculus. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Cuculus glandarius and cited Edwards's work. The great spotted cuckoo is now placed in the genus Clamator that was introduced by German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised... Wikipedia →