Pachycephala

Pachycephala
Adult male rufous whistler
(Pachycephala rufiventris)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Pachycephalidae
Genus: Pachycephala
Vigors, 1825
Diversity
More than 30 species

Pachycephala is a genus of birds native to Oceania and Southeast Asia. They are commonly known as typical whistlers. Older guidebooks may refer to them as thickheads, a literal translation of the generic name, which is derived from the Ancient Greek terms pachys "thick" + kephale "head". This lineage originated in Australo-Papua and later colonized the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos to the west and the Pacific archipelagos to the east.[1]

Species in taxonomic sequence

There are nearly 3 dozen species:[2]

An unidentified Pachycephala whistler was heard on May 14, 1994 at 1,000 meters ASL south of the summit of Camiguin in the Philippines, where the genus was not previously known to occur. It might have been an undescribed taxon, or simply a vagrant of a known species.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Jønsson, K.A. et al. (2014) Evidence of taxon cycles in an Indo-Pacific passerine bird radiation (Aves: Pachycephala). Proc. R. Soc. B.
  2. ↑ del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Christie, D. (eds.) (2007): Handbook of Birds of the World (Vol. 12: Picathartes to Tits and Chickadees). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 978-84-96553-42-2
  3. ↑ Balete, Danilo S.; Tabaranza, Blas R. Jr. & Heaney, Lawrence R. (2006) An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Camiguin Island, Philippines. Fieldiana Zool. New Series 106: 58–72.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pachycephala.