Socorro Mockingbird

SCI Name:  Mimus graysoni
Protonym:  Harporhynchus graysoni Ann.Lyc.Nat.Hist.N.Y. 10(1874) p.1
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Mimidae / Mimus
Taxonomy Code:  socmoc1
Type Locality:  Socorro Island, Mexico.
Author:  Lawrence
Publish Year:  1871
IUCN Status:  Critically Endangered

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.

graysoni / graysonii
Col. Andrew Jackson Grayson (1819-1869) US Army, ornithologist, bird artist, collector in Mexico 1859-1869 (Amazilia, subsp. Colinus virginianus, subsp. Dryobates scalaris, Icterus, ‡subsp. Micrathene whitneyi, Mimus, subsp. Quiscalus mexicanus, Setophaga, subsp. Turdus rufopalliatus, Zenaida).