Ficedula albicilla (Pallas, 1811)
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Taiga Flycatcher seen at Hyderabad, it is a winter visitor here
Arunshank · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
The taiga flycatcher or red-throated flycatcher (Ficedula albicilla) is a migratory bird in the family Muscicapidae. The species was first described by Peter Simon Pallas in 1811. The female has brown upper parts with a blackish tail flanked by white. The breast is buffish with underparts mostly white. The male has ear coverts and sides of the neck blue-tinged grey with breeding males having orange-red coloration on the throats. Unlike the taiga flycatcher, the female of the similar red-breasted flycatcher has a brown tail while the red colour in breeding males extends to the breast in the red-breasted flycatcher. It breeds in northern Eurasia from eastern Russia to Siberia and Mongolia. It is a winter visitor to South and South-east Asia in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, and Japan. Its natural habitat is taiga forest. It is a rare vagrant to western Europe. It was formerly considered a subspecies of the red-breasted flycatcher.
Wikipedia contributors, Taiga flycatcher; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T13:57:53.041035+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Ficedula albicilla (Pallas, 1811)
- Name authority
- (Pallas, 1811)
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Ficedula
- 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.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderPasseriformes
- familyMuscicapidae Fleming, 1822
- genusFicedula Brisson, 1760
- speciesFicedula albicilla (Pallas, 1811)
Close classified relatives
These entries share the source’s genus, Ficedula. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.
| Species | Classification | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Red-breasted FlycatcherFicedula parva (Bechstein, 1792) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Palawan FlycatcherFicedula platenae (W. Blasius, 1888) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Black-and-orange FlycatcherFicedula nigrorufa (Jerdon, 1839) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Rufous-throated FlycatcherFicedula rufigula (Wallace, 1865) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Ficedula riedeli (Büttikofer, 1886) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Snowy-browed FlycatcherFicedula hyperythra (Blyth, 1843) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Sumba FlycatcherFicedula harterti (Siebers, 1928) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Damar FlycatcherFicedula henrici (Hartert, 1899) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Narcissus FlycatcherFicedula narcissina (Temminck, 1836) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| European Pied FlycatcherFicedula hypoleuca (Pallas, 1764) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Cryptic FlycatcherFicedula crypta (Vaurie, 1951) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Rufous-chested FlycatcherFicedula dumetoria (Wallace, 1864) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
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.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=916368 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.
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:6HWGS. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.