What is the scientific name of the nightingale?
Q: What is the scientific name of the nightingale?
A: The scientific name of the nightingale is Luscinia megarhynchos.
Q: What family does the nightingale belong to?
A: The nightingale used to be put in the thrush family Turdidae, but now it is put on the Old World flycatchers, a group often called the chats or chat-thrushes.
Q: How big is a nightingale?
A: A nightingale is slightly larger than a robin, at around 15-16.5 cm length.
Q: Where does a nightingale breed?
A: Nightingales breed in forests and scrubs in Europe and south-west Asia. They nest on the ground in or next to dense bushes.
Q: Where do they spend their winters?
A: Nightingales spend their winters in southern Africa.
Q: What criteria do they use when choosing places to breed? A: Studies have shown that when choosing places to breed, nightingales seem to prefer areas that are less than 200 meters above mean sea level with mean air temperature during growing season above 14°C, more than 20 days/year on which temperatures are above 25°C, less than 750mm of rain per year and no closed canopy.
Q: Who sings - males or females?
A: Only unpaired males sing regularly at both day and night; female birds do not sing as much as males do.
