Phalacrocorax

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Phalacrocorax
Great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Suliformes
Family: Phalacrocoracidae
Genus: Phalacrocorax
Brisson, 1760
Type species
Pelecanus carbo
Species[1]

12, see text

Synonyms
  • Stictocarbo
  • Nanocorax (partim)
  • Anocarbo

Phalacrocorax is a genus of fish-eating birds in the cormorant family Phalacrocoracidae. Members of this genus are sometimes informally known as the Old World cormorants,[2] though their distribution is not confined to the Old World, nor are they the only cormorants in the Old World.

Description

Juvenile Phalacrocorax carbo with extensive but diffuse white on the underparts. The other species show broadly similar juvenile plumage.

The species are medium-sized to large for cormorants, ranging from 55–100 centimetres (22–39 in) long and with wingspans from 95–160 centimetres (37–63 in), and from 0.52–3.6 kilograms (1.1–7.9 lb) weight; the smallest is little black cormorant P. sulcirostris, and the largest great cormorant P. carbo.[3][4] The plumage is black, or pied with varying amounts of white. The black feathers are frequently iridescent, often green- to bronze-glossed on the wings and purple-glossed on the body and head, particularly in the breeding season; often duller, and/or with less white, in the winter. The eyes are an intense blue-green in most species, but dark in some, and with a yellow eye ring in bank cormorant P. neglectus. The feet are, as in all cormorants, totipalmate, with webs extending between all four toes; they are large, and used for underwater propulsion when fishing.[3] Juveniles are duller, often brownish above, and often with ill-defined pale or whitish underparts, lacking the sharp demarcation between black and white plumage that adults show.[3][4] All are closely tied to water for feeding; some (particularly Socotra cormorant P. nigrogularis and bank cormorant P. neglectus) are exclusively marine, others use both marine and freshwater habitats.

Taxonomy

The genus Phalacrocorax was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) as the type species.[5][6] Phalacrocorax is the Latin word for a cormorant.[7]

Current taxonomy

A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that the genus Phalacrocorax contains 12 species.[1] This taxonomy was adopted by the IUCN Red List and BirdLife International, and later by the IOC.[8]

Genus Phalacrocorax – Brisson, 1760 – twelve species
Common name Scientific name and subspecies Range Size and ecology IUCN status and estimated population
Bank cormorant or Wahlberg's cormorant

 Phalacrocorax neglectus
(Wahlberg, 1855)		 Namibia and the western seaboard of South Africa
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  EN 


Socotra cormorant

 Phalacrocorax nigrogularis
Ogilvie-Grant & Forbes, HO, 1899		 Arabian Peninsula.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  VU 


Pitt shag or Featherstone's shag

 Phalacrocorax featherstoni
Buller, 1873		 Pitt Island.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  EN 


Spotted shag

 Phalacrocorax punctatus
(Sparrman, 1786)

Two subspecies:
  • P. p. punctatus
  • P. p. oliveri
 New Zealand. Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Black-faced cormorant

 Phalacrocorax fuscescens
(Vieillot, 1817)		 Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Australian pied cormorant or yellow-faced cormorant

 Phalacrocorax varius
(Gmelin, 1789)

Two subspecies:
  • P. v. hypoleucos
  • P. v. varius
 Australasia, New Zealand
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Little black cormorant

 Phalacrocorax sulcirostris
(Brandt, 1837)		 Australia and northern New Zealand Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Indian cormorant

 Phalacrocorax fuscicollis
(Stephens, 1826)		 Indian Subcontinent west to Sind and east to Thailand and Cambodia.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Cape cormorant

 Phalacrocorax capensis
(Sparrman, 1788)		 the Congo, and up the east coast of South Africa as far as Mozambique.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  EN 


Japanese cormorant or Temminck's cormorant

 Phalacrocorax capillatus
(Temminck & Schlegel, 1850)

Genetically embedded in P. carbo and possibly better treated as a subspecies of it[1]
 Taiwan, north through Korea and Japan, to the Russian Far East.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Great cormorant or black shag

 Phalacrocorax carbo
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Six subspecies:
  • P. c. carbo
  • P. c. sinensis
  • P. c. hanedai
  • P. c. maroccanus
  • P. c. lucidus
  • P. c. novaehollandiae
 Throughout the Old World, and Australia, New Zealand and the Atlantic coast of North America.
Map of range		 Size:

Habitat:

Diet:		  LC 


Taxonomic history

Formerly, the genus Phalacrocorax usually included all members of the family Phalacrocoracidae, or with the exception of only the flightless cormorant in its own genus Nannopterum.[3] A study in 1988 examining skeletal structure combined with some ecological aspects recommended dividing the family into multiple genera,[9] but was not widely followed. Later research showed that Microcarbo was readily separable with its morphological distinctiveness and the old age of its split from the remaining cormorants; all other cormorants were retained in a still-broad Phalacrocorax.

A 2014 study found Phalacrocrax to be the sister genus to Urile, which are thought to have split from each other between 8.9–10.3 million years ago.[1] The IOC checklist went a step further in accepting Leucocarbo as well as Microcarbo as distinct (while retaining the rest in Phalacrocorax), but this treatment rendered Phalacrocorax paraphyletic (with some members much more closely related to Leucocarbo than others). Nowadays, due to the age of the splits between different cormorant clades, most authorities, including the IOC checklist, now accept seven cormorant genera, Microcarbo, Poikilocarbo, Phalacrocorax, Urile, Gulosus, Nannopterum, and Leucocarbo.[1]

References

  1. Kennedy, M.; Spencer, H.G. (2014). "Classification of the cormorants of the world". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 79: 249–257. Bibcode:2014MolPE..79..249K. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.06.020. PMID 24994028.
  2. "Old World Cormorants (Genus Phalacrocorax)". iNaturalist NZ. Archived from the original on 2023-06-20. Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  3. Handbook of the Birds of the World: orders Struthioniformes, Tinamiformes, Sphenisciformes, Gaviiformes, Podicipediformes, Procellariiformes, Pelecaniformes, Ciconiiformes, Phoenicopteriformes and Anseriformes. Barcelona: Lynx edicions. 1992. pp. 326–353. ISBN 84-87334-10-5.
  4. Cramp, Stanley (1986). Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa: the birds of the western Paleartic. Oxford London New York: Oxford university press. ISBN 0-19-857358-8.
  5. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode Contenant la Division des Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés (in French and Latin). Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1, p. 60, Vol. 6, p. 511.
  6. 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. 163.
  7. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  8. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Storks, frigatebirds, boobies, darters, cormorants". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  9. Siegel-Causey, Douglas (1988). "Phylogeny of the Phalacrocoracidae". The Condor. 90 (4): 885–905. doi:10.2307/1368846. ISSN 1938-5129. Retrieved 2026-04-29.