The genus was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus in the
tenth edition of his
Systema Naturae; it came from the
Greek name
ōtis taken from
Natural History by
Pliny the Elder published around 77 AD which briefly mentions a bird like it. These names were further mentioned by
Pierre Belon in 1555 and
Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1600. Linnaeus placed four species in the genus, but the
type species was designated as the great bustard (
Otis tarda) by
George Robert Gray in 1840. == References ==