Tinamus

Tinamus
Great tinamou (Tinamus major)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Infraclass:	Palaeognathae
Order:	Tinamiformes
Family:	Tinamidae
Subfamily:	Tinaminae
Genus:	Tinamus Hermann, 1783
Type species
Tetrao major [1] Gmelin, JF, 1789
Species
see text

Tinamus is a genus of birds in the tinamou family Tinamidae. This genus comprises some of the larger members of this South American family.

Taxonomy

The genus Tinamus was introduced in 1783 by the French naturalist Johann Hermann. ^[2] The type species was subsequently designated as the great tinamou. ^{[3] [4]} Hermann based his name on "Les Tinamous" used by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The word "Tinamú" in the Carib language of French Guiana was used for the tinamous. ^{[5] [6]}

The genus contains five species: ^[7]

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Grey tinamou	Tinamus tao	Amazonia
	Solitary tinamou	Tinamus solitarius	east Brazil to northeast Argentina and east Paraguay
	Black tinamou	Tinamus osgoodi	central south Colombia and southeast Peru
	Great tinamou	Tinamus major	south Mexico through Amazonia
	White-throated tinamou	Tinamus guttatus	Amazonia

In 2025 a potentially new species of tinamou, the slaty-masked tinamou (Tinamus resonans) was described from the Sierra del Divisor in the Brazilian state of Acre. ^[8]

References

1. "Tinamidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
2. Hermann, Johann (1783). Tabula affinitatum animalium olim academico specimine edita, nunc uberiore commentario illustrata cum annotationibus ad historiam naturalem animalium augendam facientibus. Argentorati [Strasbourg]: Impensis Joh. Georgii Treuttel. pp.  164, 235.
3. Apstein, C. (1915). "Nomina conservanda. Unter Mitwirkung zahlreicher Spezialisten herausgegeben". Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (in German). 5: 119–202 [197].
4. 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. 12.
5. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de (1778). "Le tinamou cendré". Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (in French). Vol. 4. Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale. p. 502.
6. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 386. ISBN   978-1-4081-2501-4.
7. AviList Core Team (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025". doi: 10.2173/avilist.v2025 . Retrieved 8 December 2025.
8. Morais, L.A.; Crozariol, M.A.; Godoy, F.I.; Plácido, R.A.A.; Raposo, M.A. (2025). "A new species of Tinamus (Aves: Tinamiformes) from the western Amazon, Brazil". Zootaxa. 5725 (2): 279–291. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5725.2.6.