Little grebe

Little Grebe.

Tachybaptus ruficollis  

[Pallas, 1764]

The little grebe (or “dabchick”*) is our smallest member of the Podicipedidae (the “anus feet”) but has the longest scientific name of all of our grebes at 8 syllables.

Tachybaptus  literally means "rapid-submerging"  (tachy from the Greek “takhos” for fast and baptus from the Greek “bapto” for submerge).

Ruficollis  literally means "red-necked" (rufus Latin for reddish & collus Latin for neck).

Luckily? for us, the (different) bird we actually call the “red-necked grebe” has a scientific name meaning the “grey-cheeked anus-foot” (no mention of a red neck), but that’s for another day.

All we need to remember is that our redneck… is the little grebe ...

and is scientifically named as the "rapidly-diving redneck".

We can just call it Cletus or Mary Lou I guess... 

*Incidentally…. “Dabchick” originates from obsolete English – dap or dop “to dive”…and chick for bird.