Butorides

Butorides; Temporal range: Early Pleistocene to present
	Striated heron Butorides striata javanica, Malaysia
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Pelecaniformes
Family:	Ardeidae
Subfamily:	Ardeinae
Genus:	Butorides; Blyth, 1852
Type species
	Ardea javanica = Butorides atricapilla javanica; Horsfield, 1821

Butorides is a genus of small herons. It contains four similar species, the striated heron Butorides striatus, the lava heron Butorides sundevalli, the green heron Butorides virescens and the little heron Butorides atricapilla. They are closely related, and some authorities have considered them all to be subspecies of just one species; when treated so, the merged species is called green-backed heron. The name Butorides derives from Middle English Butor ("bittern") and the Ancient Greek suffix -oides, "resembling".

Adults of the extant species are among the smallest herons, ranging in length from 35–48 centimetres (14–19 inches), and have a dark grey to blackish back and wings (sometimes with greenish or bluish iridescence), a black cap, and short legs; the legs are yellow most of the year, but flush bright orange-red during pre-breeding courtship. The species have different underpart colours; white to grey or orange-buff in striated heron, and very dark grey in lava heron, and red-brown in green heron; in all, there is a line of white streaks running down the front of the throat and breast. The juveniles are browner above and extensively streaked below, and have greenish-yellow legs.

Butorides herons breed in small wetlands, building a nest from platform of sticks, often in shrubs or trees, sometimes on the ground. The female lays three to five eggs. Both parents incubate for about 20 days until hatching, and feed the young birds, which take a further three weeks to fledge. They stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey. They mainly eat small fish, frogs and aquatic insects. They are known to drop lures on the water surface to attract fish.^[1]

A fossil species, Butorides validipes, is known from the Early Pleistocene of Florida in the United States.

Taxonomy

The genus Butorides was introduced in 1852 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth to accommodate a single species, Ardea javanica Horsfield, which is therefore becomes the type species.^[2]^[3] Ardea javanica is now considered to be a subspecies of the little heron (Butorides atricapill).^[4] The genus name is combines the genus Butor introduced by Thomas Forster in 1827 for the bitterns with the Ancient Greek -οιδης/-oidēs meaning "resembling". Butor is the Middle English word for a bittern.^[5] Within the heron family Ardeidae, Butorides is most closely related to the genus Ardeola (pond herons).^[6]

The Butorides herons were formerly considered a single species, the green-backed heron,^[7] but are now normally split, with the green heron breeding in eastern North America, Central America, the West Indies and the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States, the striated heron in South America, and the little heron in the Old World tropics and warm temperate regions from west Africa to Japan.^[4]

A molecular phylogenetic study of the genus Butorides, submitted as a master's thesis in 2023, found that the striated heron was paraphyletic. To resolve the paraphyly, twenty subspecies of the striated heron were moved to a new species, the little heron, making the striated heron a monotypic species restricted to South America.^[4]^[8]

The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships between the species:^[4]^[8]

Butorides

Butorides atricapilla – little heron

Butorides striata – striated heron

	Butorides sundevalli – lava heron

	Butorides virescens – green heron

The genus contains four species:^[4]

Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
Little heron	Butorides atricapilla	Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia
Striated heron	Butorides striata	east Panama to north Argentina, Bolivia and Chile
Lava heron	Butorides sundevalli	Galápagos Islands
Green heron	Butorides virescens	USA south to Panama

References

^ Norris, Dave (1975). "Green Heron (Butorides virescens) uses feather lure for fishing" (PDF). American Birds. 29: 652–654. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
^ Blyth, Edward (1849). Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum Asiatic Society. Calcutta: J. Thomas (published 1852). p. 281. Although the title page is dated 1849, the book was not published until 1852. See: Dickinson, E.C.; Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011). Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, UK: Aves Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-9568611-1-5.
^ Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 215.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2024). "Ibis, spoonbills, herons, Hamerkop, Shoebill, pelicans". IOC World Bird List Version 14.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 21 March 2025.
^ Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
^ Hruska, Jack P; Holmes, Jesse; Oliveros, Carl; Shakya, Subir; Lavretsky, Philip; McCracken, Kevin G; Sheldon, Frederick H; Moyle, Robert G (2023-05-08). "Ultraconserved elements resolve the phylogeny and corroborate patterns of molecular rate variation in herons (Aves: Ardeidae)". Ornithology. 140 (2). doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukad005. ISSN 0004-8038.
^ Martínez-Vilalta, A.; Motis, A. (1992). "Family Ardeida (Herons)". In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.). Handbook of the Cornel. Vol. 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. pp. 376–429 [417]. ISBN 84-87334-10-5.
^ ^a ^b Mendales, Ezra Zachary (2023). Ultraconserved elements resolve the phylogeny of a globally distributed genus, Butorides (Aves: Ardeidae) (Masters thesis). San Francisco, California: San Francisco State University. Retrieved 21 March 2025.

[1] Norris, Dave (1975). "Green Heron (Butorides virescens) uses feather lure for fishing" (PDF). American Birds. 29: 652–654. Retrieved 16 November 2024.

[2] Blyth, Edward (1849). Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum Asiatic Society. Calcutta: J. Thomas (published 1852). p. 281. Although the title page is dated 1849, the book was not published until 1852. See: Dickinson, E.C.; Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011). Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, UK: Aves Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-9568611-1-5.

[3] Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 215.

[ioc-4] Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2024). "Ibis, spoonbills, herons, Hamerkop, Shoebill, pelicans". IOC World Bird List Version 14.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 21 March 2025.

[job-5] Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.

[Hruska-6] Hruska, Jack P; Holmes, Jesse; Oliveros, Carl; Shakya, Subir; Lavretsky, Philip; McCracken, Kevin G; Sheldon, Frederick H; Moyle, Robert G (2023-05-08). "Ultraconserved elements resolve the phylogeny and corroborate patterns of molecular rate variation in herons (Aves: Ardeidae)". Ornithology. 140 (2). doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukad005. ISSN 0004-8038.

[hbw-7] Martínez-Vilalta, A.; Motis, A. (1992). "Family Ardeida (Herons)". In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.). Handbook of the Cornel. Vol. 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. pp. 376–429 [417]. ISBN 84-87334-10-5.

[mendales-8] Mendales, Ezra Zachary (2023). Ultraconserved elements resolve the phylogeny of a globally distributed genus, Butorides (Aves: Ardeidae) (Masters thesis). San Francisco, California: San Francisco State University. Retrieved 21 March 2025.

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