Eurasian golden oriole
| Eurasian golden oriole | |
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| Adult male | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Oriolidae |
| Genus: | Oriolus |
| Species: | O. oriolus |
| Binomial name | |
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Oriolus oriolus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Summer Winter | |
| Synonyms | |
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The Eurasian golden oriole or simply golden oriole (Oriolus oriolus) is the only member of the oriole family of passerine birds breeding in Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. It is a summer migrant in Europe and western Asia and spends the winter season in central and southern Africa.
Golden orioles have an extremely large range with large populations that are apparently stable. Therefore, they are evaluated as least concern by BirdLife International.
The Eurasian golden oriole was originally described in the genus Coracias by Carl Linnaeus. Formerly, this species was treated as being conspecific with the Indian golden oriole until split in 2011. A sub-population named turkestanica was considered by Charles Vaurie to be indistinguishable from O. o. oriolus. Alternate names for the Eurasian golden oriole include the European golden oriole and western Eurasian golden oriole.
The name "oriole" was first used in the 18th century and is an adaptation of the scientific Latin genus name, which is derived from the Classical Latin "aureolus" meaning golden. Various forms of "oriole" have existed in Romance languages since the 12th and 13th centuries.Albertus Magnus used the Latin form oriolus in about 1250 and erroneously stated that it was onomatopoeic because of the golden oriole's song. In medieval England its name, derived from the song, was the woodwele.
The male is striking in the typical oriole black and yellow plumage, but the female is a drabber green bird. Orioles are shy, and even the male is remarkably difficult to see in the dappled yellow and green leaves of the canopy. In flight they look somewhat like a thrush, strong and direct with some shallow dips over longer distances. The New World orioles are similar in appearance to the Oriolidae, but are icterids and unrelated to the Old World birds.
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