The first member of the genus to be described was the red-billed chough, named as Upupa pyrrhocorax by Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758. His genus Upupa contained species that had a long curved bill and a short blunt tongue. These included the northern bald ibis and the hoopoe, birds now known to be completely unrelated to the choughs. (‘Beak curved, convex, slight compressed. Tongue blunt, very full, triangular and very brief.’)
