Microcarbo is a genus of fish-eating birds, known as cormorants, of the family Phalacrocoracidae. The genus was formerly subsumed within Phalacrocorax. Microcarbo has been recognized as a valid genus by the IOC’s World Bird List (Gill and Donsker 2010) on the basis of work by Siegel-Causey (1988), Kennedy et al. (2000), and Christidis and Boles (2008). As suggested by the name, this genus contains the smallest of the world's cormorants. Five living and one extinct species are recognized.