The Indian myna's Latin name means sad or gloomy
Acridotheres tristis, the common or Indian myna, is an Asian starling so invasive that in 2000 the IUCN Species Survival Commission listed it among the world's worst alien species. Omnivorous and bold around people, it keeps expanding its range from city streets to remote islands.
Native to Asia, this sturnid thrives in open and urban habitats, eating insects, fruit, scraps, and more. Rapid range growth alarmed conservation bodies; the 2000 worst-invasive list cemented its reputation as an ecological generalist that outcompetes hole-nesting natives. Mathurin Jacques Brisson described it in 1760; Linnaeus folded related material into the 1766 Systema Naturae twelfth edition among hundreds of added species.
The epithet tristis is Latin for sad or gloomy, while the genus name Acridotheres, coined by Vieillot in 1816, means locust hunter in Greek. Brisson's specimen was wrongly thought to come from the Philippines; the type locality was later fixed at Pondicherry. The bird is brown with a black hood, a bare yellow patch behind the eye and bright yellow bill and legs, and its repertoire runs from croaks and clicks to whistles and growls, which is why it is kept as a talking cage bird.
People have carried it to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Florida, Hawaii and many islands; the Seychelles managed to eradicate it only at great expense. In Canberra, 110 birds released between 1968 and 1971 reached about 15 per square kilometre by 1991 and 75 just three years later. Having evolved in India's open woodlands, it is pre-adapted to tall structures and bare ground, much like city streets. Pairs are thought to mate for life and lay 4 to 6 eggs in tree or wall holes; they take over woodpecker and parakeet nests and have been seen pulling out other birds' chicks, aggression that helps explain their spread. Their nests also block gutters and drainpipes.
Source: Common myna
