page_title: Wagtail
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Wagtail / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bachstelze Motacilla alba yarrellii, Ei, Coll. Museum Wiesbaden, leg. W. Abelmann English: White wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii, egg, Coll. Museum Wiesbaden, leg. W. Abelmann
context_page_description: The wagtail is a genus, Motacilla, of passerine birds in the family Motacillidae. The forest wagtail belongs to the monotypic genus Dendronanthus which is closely related to Motacilla and sometimes included herein. The common name and genus names are derived from their characteristic tail pumping behaviour. Together with the pipits and longclaws they form the family Motacillidae.
  The willie wagtail of Australia is an unrelated bird similar in coloration and shape to the Japanese wagtail. It belongs to the fantails.
context_section_description: The genus Motacilla was introduced by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.  The type species is the white wagtail. Motacilla is the Latin name for the pied wagtail; although actually a diminutive of motare, "to move about", from medieval times it led to the misunderstanding of cilla as "tail".
  At first glance, the wagtails appear to be divided into a yellow-bellied group and a white-bellied one, or one where the upper head is black and another where it is usually grey, but may be olive, yellow, or other colours. However, these are not evolutionary lineages; change of belly colour and increase of melanin have occurred independently several times in the wagtails, and the  colour patterns which actually indicate relationships are more subtle.
  mtDNA cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 sequence data (Voelker, 2002) is of limited use: the suspicion that there is a superspecies of probably 3 white-bellied, black-throated wagtails is confirmed. Also, there is another superspecies in sub-Saharan Africa, three white-throated species with a black breast-band. The remaining five species are highly variable morphologically and their relationships with each other and with the two clades have not yet been satisfactorily explained.
  The origin of the genus appears to be in the general area of Eastern Siberia/Mongolia. Wagtails spread rapidly across Eurasia and dispersed to Africa in the Zanclean (Early Pliocene)
  where the sub-Saharan lineage was later isolated. The African pied wagtail (and possibly the Mekong wagtail) diverged prior to the massive radiation of the white-bellied black-throated and most yellow-bellied forms, all of which took place during the late Piacenzian (early Late Pliocene), c. 3 mya.
  Three species are poly- or paraphyletic in the present taxonomical arrangement and either subspecies need to be reassigned and/or species split up. The blue-headed wagtail (AKA yellow wagtail and many other names), especially, has always been a taxonomical nightmare with over a dozen currently accepted subspecies and many more invalid ones. The two remaining "monochrome" species, Mekong and African pied wagtail may be closely related, or a most striking example of convergent evolution.
  Prehistoric wagtails known from fossils are Motacilla humata and Motacilla major.
caption: Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden, Germany
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D90", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.8.10", "Image DateTime": "2014:09:24 14:09:38", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "222", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "10078", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1", "EXIF FNumber": "18", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:03 10:35:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:03 10:35:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "85", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "0", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "0", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "10048", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "127", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}