Muscicapoidea I

Passerines

Tyranni: Suboscines

Passeri: Oscines

Passerida

Sylvioidea
Muscicapoidea and allies
Passeroidea

The 44 Orders

Paleognaths

Galloanserae

Metaves

Pelecanae

Charadriae

Passerae

Muscicapoidea tree Having removed the Certhioidea, Reguloidea, and Bombycilloidea, the main higher level change is the addition of the oxpecker family (Buphagidae). The Muscicapoidea break into two clades. The first contains the oxpeckers, mockingbirds, and starlings (Muscicapoidea I). The other contains the dippers, thrushes, and Old World flycatchers (Muscicapoidea II).

Oxpeckers, Mockingbirds, and Starlings

Click for Muscicapoidea genera tree, part I
Click for Muscicapoidea
genera, part I

The Buphagidae (oxpeckers) must be given their own family to avoid merging the Sturnidae and Mimidae. The Philippine creepers (Rhabdornis) have variously been considered a separate family (Howard and Moore, 2003), part of Certhiidae (Sharpe, 1903; Beecher, 1953), or members of Sylviidae (Sibley and Monroe, 1993), but they actually are embedded within the Sturnidae (Zuccon et al., 2006; Lovette and Rubenstein, 2007). They are basal members of a clade of south Asian and Pacific Starlings, which includes the hill-mynas.

Buphagidae: Oxpeckers

1 genus, 2 species HBW-14

Mimidae: Mockingbirds, Thrashers

10 genera, 34 species HBW-10

Click for Buphagidae and Mimidae tree
Click for Buphagidae
and Mimidae tree

The Mimidae seem fairly stable in terms of membership, but have undergone some rearrangement. The taxonomy is primarily based on Lovette and Rubenstein (2007), but Arbogast et al. (2006), Hunt et al. (2001), and Zink et al. (1999) were also consulted. There are two main clades, one including the catbirds through tremblers, the other consisting of mockingbirds and thrashers.

The genera Mimodes and Nesomimus have been folded into Mimus (see Arbogast et al., 2006; Barber et al., 2004) and Allenia has been split from Margarops (Hunt et al., 2001).

Sturnidae: Starlings, Mynas

34 genera, 121 species HBW-14

The Phillipine creepers (Rhabdornis) were thought to be babblers, but Barker et al. (2004) and Cibois and Cracraft (2004) found they were allied to the starlings. This led to thoughts they should be a separate family, but more recently Zuccon et al. (2006) and Lovette and Rubenstein (2007) found they were embedded in the Sturnidae.

The taxonomy here mainly follows the extensive analysis of Lovette and Rubenstein (2007), with help from Lovette et al. (2008) and Zuccon et al. 2006. Lovette and Rubenstein identified a number of major clades. The subfamily Graculinae includes the starlings and mynas of south Asia and the Pacific. It includes two tribes, the Phillipine creepers (Rhabdornini) and the south Asian/Pacific starlings and mynas (Graculini). The second subfamily, Sturninae, includes the Eurasian and African starlings. It includes 4 tribes: the Eurasian starlings and mynas (Sturnini), the Amethyst and Madagascan starlings (Cinnyricinclini), the red-winged starlings (Onychognathini), and the African starlings (Lamprotornini).

Lovette et al. (2008) provides a complete genetic analysis of all of the extant Eurasian starlings and mynas (Sturnini). The genus Sturnus was found to be overly broad, resulting in splits of Pastor, Gracupica, Agropsar, Sturnornis, Sturnia (aka Temenuchus), and Spodiopsar (Poliopsar). Also, S. burmannicus has been moved to Acridotheres. The recent paper by Zuccon et al. (2008) slightly refines the ordering (mainly the Reunion Starling), and corrects two of the genus names (to Sturnia and Spodiopsar).

Other generic changes include splitting Hartlaubius from Saroglossa, and both Notopholia and Hylopsar from Lamprotornis. In the other direction, Spreo has been merged into Lamprotornis. Finally, Poeoptera femoralis has moved from Cinnyricinclus.

Graculinae: South Asian/Pacific Starlings

Rhabdornini: Phillipine Creeper

Graculini: South Asian & Pacific Starlings and Mynas

Sturninae: African/Eurasian Starlings

Sturnini: Eurasian Starlings

Cinnyricinclini: Madagascan and Violet-backed Starling

Onychognathini: Red-winged Starlings

Lamprotornini: African Starlings

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