Grus (genus)
Grus is a genus of large birds in the crane family.
The genus Grus was erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The name Grus is the Latin word for "crane". The German ornithologist Peter Simon Pallas was sometimes credited with erecting the genus in 1766 but the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled in 1956 that Brisson should have priority.
The genus formerly included additional species. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2010 found that the genus Grus, as then defined, was polyphyletic. In the resulting rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, the sandhill crane, the white-naped crane, the sarus crane and the brolga were moved to the resurrected genus Antigone that had been erected by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853. The Siberian crane was moved to the resurrected monotypic genus Leucogeranus.
Species
The genus contains eight species:| Image | Scientific name | Common Name | Distribution |
| Grus carunculata | Wattled crane | Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. | |
| Grus paradisea | Blue crane | Southern Africa | |
| Grus virgo | Demoiselle crane | Central Eurasia, ranging from the Black Sea to Mongolia and northeastern China. There is also a small breeding population in Turkey. | |
| Grus japonensis | Red-crowned crane | Siberia, northeastern China, Hokkaidō, the Korean Peninsula, and occasionally in northeastern Mongolia. | |
| Grus americana | Whooping crane | North American | |
| Grus grus | Common crane | Europe | |
| Grus monacha | Hooded crane | South-central and south-eastern Siberia, Mongolia, China. | |
| Grus nigricollis | Black-necked crane | The Tibetan Plateau and remote parts of India and Bhutan. |
The HBW/BirdLife and Clements checklists place the demoiselle crane and blue crane in the genus Anthropoides, and the wattled crane in the monospecific genus Bugeranus, leaving only the red-crowned, whooping, common, hooded, and black-necked cranes in the genus Grus.
The Cuban flightless crane, Grus cubensis, became extinct in the Pleistocene.
Fossil record
The fossil record of the genus stretches back some 12 million years or so. A considerable number of prehistoric species are known, with the oldest, Grus miocaenicus perhaps not a crane but a junior synonym of the swimming-flamingo Palaelodus ambiguus;. The Late Pleistocene Mediterranean Grus primigenia was hunted by Stone Age humans.- Grus afghana - doubtfully distinct from G. penteleci
- Grus sp. 1
- Grus sp. 2
- Grus cf. antigone
- Grus nannodes
- Grus sp.
- Grus haydeni - 2 species, one may be same as G. canadensis
- Grus penteleci - formerly in Pliogrus
- Grus sp.
- Grus bogatshevi - doubtfully distinct form G. primigenia
- Grus latipes - formerly Baeopteryx
- Maltese crane Grus melitensis - doubtfully distinct from G. primigenia
- Grus pagei
- Grus primigenia
- Grus cubensis
More uncertain is the position of Probalearica from Golboçica and maybe elsewhere. It is usually regarded a nomen dubium but might belong into Grus. "Grus" conferta'' is apparently too different from the modern genus to be placed herein, but its affiliations are not well resolved.