The shining bronze cuckoo (Chrysococcyx lucidus) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae, found in Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. It was previously also known as Chalcites lucidus. It is a very small cuckoo, being only in length, and parasitises chiefly dome-shaped nests of various Gerygone species, having a range that largely corresponds with the distribution of that genus. It may also parasitise other Acanthizidae species, and is also the most southerly ranging brood parasitic bird species in the world, extending to at least 46°S in New Zealand. Taxonomy The shining bronze cuckoo was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other cuckoos in the genus Cuculus and coined the binomial name Cuculus lucidus. Gmelin based his description on the Shining cuckoo from New Zealand that had been described and illustrated in 1782 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had in turn based his account on a drawing obtained from Joseph Banks. The shining bronze cuckoo is now placed together with 12 other species in the genus Chrysococcyx that was introduced in 1826 by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek χρυσος khrusos meaning "gold" with κοκκυξ kokkux "cuckoo". The specific epithet lucidus is from Latin and means "clear" or "bright". In 1801 Latham described the "Glossy cuckoo" as Cuculus plagosus from New South Wales, and the two were classified as separate species for many years. However Latham's Cuculus plagosus is now considered as a subspecies of the shining bronze cuckoo. In New Zealand it is usually known as the shining cuckoo, or by its Māori name . Formerly some authorities placed the shining bronze cuckoo in the genus Chalcites instead of Chrysococcyx. Four subspecies are recognised: C. l. harterti (Mayr, 1932) – resident on Rennell and Bellona (south Solomon Islands) C. l. layardi Mathews, 1912 – resident on Temotu (=Santa Cruz Islands, southeast Solomon Islands), Vanuatu including Banks Islands and New Caledonia including Loyalty Islands C. l. plagosus (Latham, 1801) – breeds southwest Western Australia, Cape York Peninsula, northeast Queensland to southeast South Australia and Tasmania (southwest, northeast Australia and Tasmania): winters Lesser Sunda Islands, New Guinea and Bismarck Archipelago C. l. lucidus (Gmelin, JF,