rubecula.

Derived in some way from the root of rubeō (“to be red”). In the context of William Turner's Avium Praecipuarum (1544) it translates Ancient Greek ἐρίθᾰκος (eríthăkos), a bird name used by Aristotle. The Latin form of the name seems to have been coined by Theodorus Gaza for his translation of Aristotle’s Historia animalium in 1476; it is possible that he interpreted ἐρύθακος (erúthakos) (an alternative manuscript reading of the Greek name) as a compound of ἐρυθρός (eruthrós, “red”) and θᾶκος (thâkos, “seat”) and created the Latin form as a compound ending in cūlus (“posterior”). Alternatively, it may be an irregularly formed diminutive (with the ending -culus). The feminine gender may follow that of the hypernym avis f (“bird”).