Rock thrush

The rock thrushes, Monticola, are a genus of chats, medium-sized mostly insectivorous or omnivorous songbirds. All are Old World birds, and most are associated with mountainous regions.

The genus Monticola was erected by the German naturalist Friedrich Boie in 1822. Boie listed two species, saxatilis and cyanus but did not designate the type species. In 1826 Boie introduced a different genus name, Petrocossyphus, containing a single species, Turdus saxatilis Linnaeus. This new genus name was not accepted by other ornithologists as according to Hugh Edwin Strickland: "The former name ought therefore to stand, as authors ought no more to alter their own generic names when once published than those of others". The type species of the genus Monticola is Turdus saxatilis Linnaeus, the common rock thrush. Monticola is the Latin word for mountain-dweller or mountaineer.

The genus was formerly included in the thrush family Turdidae, but molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2004 and 2010 showed that the species are more closely related to members of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae.

The genus contains the following species:

Monticola pongraczi (Pliocene of Beremend, Hungary)