Brown-backed Mockingbird

SCI Name:  Mimus dorsalis
Protonym:  Or[pheus]. dorsalis Mag.Zool. 7 cl.2 p.18
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Mimidae / Mimus
Taxonomy Code:  brbmoc1
Type Locality:  in Andiis, rep. Boliviana = Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Author:  d''Orbigny & Lafresnaye
Publish Year:  1837
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

MIMUS
(Mimidae; Ϯ Northern Mockingbird M. polyglottos) L. mimus  mimic  < Gr. μιμος mimos  mimic; "Hernandez justly calls it the queen of all singing birds. The Indians, by way of eminence or admiration, call it cencontlatolly, or four hundred tongues; and we call it (though not by so elevated a name, yet very properly) the mock-bird, from its wonderful mocking and imitating the notes of all birds, from the humming-bird to the eagle" (Catesby 1731); "LE GRAND MOQUEUR ...  MIMUS MAJOR ...  il chante très-bien, & imite parfaitement le chant de tous les Oiseaux" (Brisson 1760): based on "Mimus" of Charleton 1668, "Mock-bird" of Catesby 1731, and other references; "Mimus Briss.  Turdus polyglottus Lin. enl. 645. u.v.a." (Boie 1826); "Mimus Boie, 1826, Isis von Oken, p. 972. Type, by monotypy, Turdus polyglottos Linnaeus." (Davis & Miller in Peters 1960, IX, 442).
Var. Mimetes, Minus, Memus, Nemus.
Synon. Leucomimus, Mimodes, Nesomimus, Orpheus, Skotiomimus.

mimus
L. mimus  mimic  < Gr. μιμος mimos  mimic.

dorsale / dorsalis
L. dorsalis (properly dorsualis)  dorsal, of the back  < dorsum  back.
● ex “Chorlito à dos noir” of de Buffon (Sonnini ed.) 1800-1802 (syn. Calidris melanotos).