Green heron Temporal range:
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Green heron have iridescent green feathers on their wings | |
Call | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Pelecaniformes |
Family: | Ardeidae |
Genus: | Butorides |
Species: | B. virescens
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Binomial name | |
Butorides virescens | |
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Range of B. virescens Breeding range Year-round range Wintering range
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Synonyms | |
Ardea virescens Linnaeus, 1758 |
The green heron (Butorides virescens) is a small heron of North and Central America. Butorides is from Middle English butor "bittern" and Ancient Greek -oides, "resembling", and virescens is Latin for "greenish".[2]
It was long considered conspecific with its sister species the striated heron (Butorides striata), and together they were called "green-backed heron". Birds of the nominate subspecies (no matter which taxonomic arrangement is preferred) are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe—for example, a sighting in Pembrokeshire in 2018 was only the second recorded sighting in Wales;[3] individuals from the Pacific coast of North America may similarly stray as far as Hawaii.[4][5][6]
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