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Eurylaimides, Tyrannida and Furnariida: the suboscine passerines

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Here's a brief extract from the birds chapter (Naish 2012) of The Complete Dinosaur, second edition, with some slight tweaks [get the book here on Amazon.com; here on Amazon.co.uk]. Much more on this volume soon. The section of text here is on suboscine passerines.

Within passerines (the so-called ‘perching birds’), molecular work shows that New Zealand wrens are the sister group to Eupasseres, the great clade that includes Suboscines (also called Tyranni) and Oscines. Suboscines includes the Old World broadbills (Eurylaimidae), asities (Philepittidae), and pittas (Pittidae)--all of which are grouped together as Eurylaimides--and the diverse American clade Tyrannides. Eurylaimides is not exclusive to the Old World, as the Sapayoa Sapayoa aenigmaof northern South America (once known as the Broad-billed manakin) is a close relative of African and Indo-Malayan broadbills.

Tyrannides includes tyrant flycatchers, cotingas, and manakins (grouped together as Tyrannida; they possess the simple haplophone syrinx), and the ovenbirds, woodcreepers, and antbirds (grouped together as Furnariida; they possess the complex tracheophone syrinx). Cotingas (Cotingidae) and manakins (Pipridae) are brightly colored neotropical suboscines, many of which exhibit remarkable display adaptations. Manakins make whirring and clicking noises by vibrating modified wing feathers. Woodcreepers (Dendrocolaptinae) are convergently similar to woodpeckers and possess stiffened rectrices, partially fused toes, legs specialized for vertical climbing, and a suite of cranial features that allow them to pry and probe into wood. Ovenbirds incorporate 55 genera and have been described as the most diverse neornithine family in terms of natural history and ecology [Adjacent ovenbird photo by Michael Woodruff]. They include species that strongly resemble oscines from elsewhere in the world: there are ovenbirds that resemble thrushes, dippers, larks, thrashers, sylviid warblers, and creepers.


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For previous Tet Zoo articles on passerines, see...

Refs - -

Naish, D. 2012. Birds. In Brett-Surman, M. K., Holtz, T. R. & Farlow, J. O. (eds) The Complete Dinosaur, 2nd edition. Indiana University Press (Bloomington & Indianapolis), pp. 379-423.

Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com!

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