Iora

The ioras are a small family, Aegithinidae, of four passerine bird species found in south and southeast Asia. The family is composed of a single genus, Aegithina. They were formerly grouped with the leafbirds and fairy-bluebirds, in the family Irenidae.

==Taxonomy and systematics== The genus Aegithina was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot to accommodate the common iora. The genus name is from Ancient Greek aigithos or aiginthos, a mythical bird mentioned by Aristotle and other classical authors. The common iora was described in 1758 and given the binomial name Motacilla tiphia by Carl Linnaeus, but there was a some confusion about the nature of bird Linnaeus was referring to. Early taxonomists considered it to variously be a warbler, flycatcher, finch or babbler. When G. R. Gray erected the family Aegithinidae in 1869 he included a number of babbler genera in it with the ioras. Edward Blyth, working in the 1850s, was the first to connect the ioras with the leafbirds and fairy-bluebirds, and included all these with the bulbuls.