Racket-tailed Roller

SCI Name:  Coracias spatulatus
Protonym:  Coracias spatulatus Proc.Zool.Soc.London Pt1 p.30
Taxonomy:  Coraciiformes / Coraciidae / Coracias
Taxonomy Code:  ratrol2
Type Locality:  Leshumo Valley, near Victoria Falls, Rhodesia.
Author:  Trimen
Publish Year:  1880
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

CORACIAS
(Coraciidae; † European Roller C. garrulus) Gr. κορακιας korakias  type of crow or daw, perhaps a chough  < κοραξ korax, κορακος korakos  raven  < κρωζω krōzō  to croak; the European Roller has a distinctive rolling or tumbling display flight, from which it received its substantive English name;  “A genus nearly related to the Crow. Thence Linnaeus calls it Coracias: A word of Aristotle’s applied only to what we call the Cornish chough” (Pennant 1773); the rollers were formerly included in the Corvidae next to the jays Garrulus and choughs; "49. CORACIAS.  Rostrum cultratum apice incurvato, basi pennis denudatum.  Lingua cartilaginea, bifida." (Linnaeus 1758); "Coracias Linné, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1, 1758, p. 107.  Type, by subsequent designation, Coracias garrulus Linné. (Gray, Cat. Gen. Subgen. Bds., 1855, p. 13 ¹)   ...   ¹ In list Gen. Bds., 1840 and ed. 2, 1841, Gray designates Coracias abyssinica Gm. as type of the genus, a designation that is invalid since this was not one of the orignally included species." (Peters, 1945, V, p. 241).  This is the tenth diagnosed genus in avian taxonomy.  Linnaeus's Coracias comprised six species (C. Garrulus, C. caffra, C. Oriolus, C. Galbula, C. aurea, C. Xanthornus).   
Var. Coracius, Coriacias, Caracias.   
Synon. Ampelis, Coraciura, Eucoracias, Galgulus, Titia, Trimenornis.

coracias
Gr. κορακιας korakias  type of crow or daw  < κοραξ korax, κορακος korakos  raven  < κρωζω krōzō  to croak (syn. Coracias garrulus).

spatulata / spatulatus
Mod. L. spatulatus  spatulate, spoon-shaped  < L. spatula  spoon  < dim. spatha  spatula  < Gr. σπαθη spathē  spatula.