Calandra lark
species of bird
The calandra lark (Melanocorypha calandra) or European calandra-lark breeds in warm temperate countries around the Mediterranean and eastwards through Turkey into northern Iran and southern Russia. It is replaced further east by its relative, the bimaculated lark.
Taxonomy and systematics
The calandra lark was originally placed in the genus Alauda. The current genus name, Melanocorypha is from Ancient Greek melas, "black", and koruphos a term used by ancient writers for a now unknown bird, but here confused with korudos, "lark". "Calandra"' derives ultimately from kalandros the Ancient Greek name for this bird. The bimaculated lark is also sometimes termed as the calandra lark.
Subspecies
Four subspecies are recognized:
Western calandra lark (M. c. calandra) - (Linnaeus, 1766): Found in southern Europe and north-western Africa to Turkey (except south-central and south-eastern Turkey), Transcaucasia and north-western Iran
Eastern calandra lark (M. c. psammochroa) - Hartert, 1904: Found from northern Iraq and northern Iran to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan
M. c. gaza - Meinertzhagen, R, 1919: Originally described as a subspecies of the bimaculated lark.
The public source identifies “Calandra lark” as species of bird. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Calandra, lark and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q470853. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1766, 1904 and 1919.
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This entry incorporates text from “Calandra lark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.