Megaluridae
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_in_Kolkata_W_IMG_3399.jpg/220px-Striated_Grassbird_(Megalurus_palustris)_in_Kolkata_W_IMG_3399.jpg) Striated Grassbird, Megalurus palustris
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Bradypterus |
Megaluridae is a newly recognized family of small insectivorous songbirds ("warblers"), formerly placed in the Old World warbler "wastebin" family. It contains the grass-warblers, grassbirds, and the Bradypterus "bush-warblers". These birds occur mainly in Eurasia, Africa, and the Australian region. As common name, megalurid warblers is usually used.[1]
The species are smallish birds with tails that are usually long and pointed; the scientific name of the type genus Megalurus in fact means "the large-tailed one" in plain English. They are less wren-like than the typical shrub-warblers (Cettia) but like these uniformly drab brownish or buffy. They tend to be larger and slimmer than Cettia though, and many have bold dark streaks on wings and/or underside. Most live in scrubland and frequently hunt food by clambering through thick tangled growth or pursuing it on the ground; they are perhaps the most terrestrial of the "warblers". Very unusual for Passeriformes, beginning evolution towards flightlessness is seen in some taxa.[2]
Among the "warbler and babbler" superfamily Sylvioidea, the Megaluridae are closest to the Malagasy warblers, another newly-recognized (and hitherto unnamed) family; the Black-capped Donacobius (Donacobius atricapillus) is an American relative derived from the same ancestral stock and not a wren as was long believed.[1]
[edit] Genera
- Bradypterus – Megalurid bush-warblers (more than 20 species; paraphyletic[3])
- Locustella – grass-warblers (9 species)
- Megalurus – typical grassbirds (5 species; probably polyphyletic)
- Schoenicola – wide-tailed grassbirds (2 species; tentatively placed here)
- Cincloramphus – songlarks (2 species; tentatively placed here)
Several other (usually small or monotypic) genera are suspected to belong here too:
- Bowdleria – fernbirds (1 living species, 1 recently extinct; sometimes included in Megalurus)
- Buettikoferella – Buff-banded Bushbird
- Chaetornis – Bristled Grassbird
- Dromaeocercus – emu-tails (2 species, includes Amphilais)
- Eremiornis – Spinifex-bird
- Megalurulus – thicketbirds (5 species)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b Alström et al. (2006)
- ^ del Hoyo et al. (2006)
- ^ At least one species - Victorin's Scrub-warbler - does not belong in the Megaluridae at all (Beresford et al., 2005).
[edit] References
- Alström, P.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Olsson, U. & Sundberg, P. (2006): Phylogeny and classification of the avian superfamily Sylvioidea. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 38(2): 381–397. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.05.015 PDF fulltext
- Beresford, P.; Barker, F.K.; Ryan, P.G.; & Crowe, T.M. (2005): African endemics span the tree of songbirds (Passeri): molecular systematics of several evolutionary 'enigmas'. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B 272 (1565): 849–858. doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2997 PDF fulltext Electronic appendix
- del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (eds.) (2006): Handbook of Birds of the World (Volume 11: Old World Flycatchers to Old World Warblers). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 849655306X
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