A
shrike is a
passerine bird of the family
Laniidae which is known for its habit of catching other birds and small
animals and impaling the uneaten portions of their bodies on
thorns.
A typical shrike's beak is hooked, like a bird of prey, reflecting its predatory nature.
Numerous species of shrike are present on all continents except South America and Australia.
Shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their habit of keeping a "larder" of corpses. (Note that the butcherbirds[?] of Australasia are not shrikes, although they occupy a similar ecological niche.)
Species are
Family: Lanidae
- Great Grey Shrike or Northern Shrike Lanius excubitor
- Southern Grey Shrike Lanius meridionalis
- Lesser Grey Shrike Lanius minor
- Red-backed Shrike Lanius collurio
- Isabelline Shrike Lanius isabellinus
- Woodchat Shrike Lanius senator
- Masked Shrike[?] Lanius nubicus
- Long-tailed Shrike Lanius schach
- Loggerhead Shrike Lanius ludovicianus
- Tiger Shrike, Lanius tigrinus
- Bull-headed Shrike, Lanius bucephalus
- Brown Shrike, Lanius cristatus
- Burmese Shrike, Lanius collurioides
- Emin's Shrike, Lanius gubernator
- Souza's Shrike, Lanius souzae
- Bay-backed Shrike, Lanius vittatus
- Grey-backed Shrike Lanius tephronotus
- Gray-capped Shrike, Lanius validirostris
- Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus
- Chinese Gray Shrike, Lanius sphenocercus
- Gray-backed Fiscal, Lanius excubitoroides
- Long-tailed Fiscal, Lanius cabanisi
- Taita Fiscal, Lanius dorsalis
- Somali Fiscal, Lanius somalicus
- Mackinnon's Shrike, Lanius mackinnoni
- Common Fiscal, Lanius collaris
- Newton's Fiscal, Lanius newtoni
- Yellow-billed Shrike, Corvinella corvina
- Magpie Shrike, Corvinella melanoleuca
- White-rumped Shrike, Eurocephalus rueppelli
- White-crowned Shrike Eurocephalus anguitimens
Other species called shrikes are in the families:
The first two groups were previously included in Lanidae, but the cuckoo-shrikes are not related.
Some models of the
Rockwell Commander aircraft were subnamed Shrike.
The
Shrike is a beast in the
science fiction Hyperion book series from
Dan Simmons.
The
AGM-45 Shrike is a
HARM[?] developed at the US
Naval Weapons Center[?] from 1958 and manufactured by
Texas Instruments and
Sperry Rand from 1963. It was used by the military of the USA and Israel. It had a number of flaws and was replaced by the
AGM-88 HARM. Production was stopped in 1982 and the US withdrew the missile in 1992. Around 18,500 were built.
Shrike is the codename for the
Red Hat Linux 9
operating system.
Linux is an
open source operating system of which Red Hat is a popular
distribution. It is freely distributed under the terms of the
GNU General Public Licence.