#1002 · 🐦 birds
Blue-cheeked Bee-eater
🇳🇱 Groene Bijeneter ·Merops persicus
9 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The blue-cheeked bee-eater ( Merops persicus ) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family, Meropidae. The genus name Merops is Ancient Greek for "bee-eater", and persicus is Latin for "Persian".
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 1 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 3,662 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Weighs only about 49 g.
- Scientifically named by Peter Simon Pallas in 1773 (253 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Blue-cheeked Bee-eater
- Nederlands
- Groene Bijeneter
- scientific name
- Merops persicus
- class
- Aves
- order
- Coraciiformes
- family
- Meropidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 1
- sightings in Europe
- 524
- sightings worldwide
- 3,662
- GBIF records in NL
- 479
- weight
- 49.4 g
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1773 by Peter Simon Pallas
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Meropidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 2245, Wikidata Q1951359, GBIF 2475419, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.