12, see text Phalacrocorax is a genus of fish-eating birds in the cormorant family Phalacrocoracidae.

A 2014 study found Phalacrocrax to be the sister genus to Urile, which are thought to have split from each other between 8.9 - 10.3 million years ago.

[1] A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that the genus Phalacrocorax contains 12 species.

[1] This taxonomy was adopted by the IUCN Red List and BirdLife International, and later by the IOC.

Nowadays, due to the age of the splits between different cormorant clades, most authorities, including the aforementioned two checklists, now recognize seven cormorant genera: Microcarbo, Poikilocarbo, Phalacrocorax, Urile, Gulosus, Nannopterum, and Leucocarbo.