Horned Grebe

Open encyclopedia reference

The horned grebe or Slavonian grebe (Podiceps auritus) is a relatively small and threatened species of waterbird in the family Podicipedidae. There are two subspecies, P. a. auritus (Slavonian grebe), which breeds in Eurasia, and P. a. cornutus (horned grebe), which breeds in North America. The Eurasian subspecies is distributed over most of northern Europe and northern Asia, breeding from Iceland east to the Russian Far East. The North American subspecies spans most of Canada and some of the United States. A small population was cited in Greenland in 1973, but is not mapped or further mentioned by subsequent authors.

The American name 'horned' refers to the orange-yellow crest feathers located above and behind the eyes, called "horns". The English name, originally 'Sclavonian', is first attested by George Montagu in his 1802 Ornithological Dictionary, from Scalovia, an old name for northern Prussia, referring to the species' main breeding area in Europe; the spelling was emended (without any reason given) to the current 'Slavonian' by Hartert in 1912.

Wikipedia contributors, Horned grebe; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T02:21:19.108011+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Podiceps auritus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Name authority

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Common name

Horned Grebe

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Podicipediformes

Family

Podicipedidae

Genus

Podiceps

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPodicipediformes
10. familyPodicipedidae Bonaparte, 1831
11. genusPodiceps Latham, 1787
12. speciesPodiceps auritus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Podiceps. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 21 records assigned to Podicipedidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=174482 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4KPNN. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.