Basal Passeroidea

Passerines

Tyranni: Suboscines

Passeri: Oscines

Passerida

Sylvioidea
Muscicapoidea and allies
Passeroidea

The 44 Orders

Paleognaths

Galloanserae

Metaves

Pelecanae

Charadriae

Passerae

Passeroidea

Passeroidea is the last group of families on the list. It's last mainly because of its size, over 20 families and 1500 species. The first few families involve species that have bounced around the taxonomic tree.

Promeropidae: Sugarbirds

4 genera, 5 species HBW-13

Promeropidae tree All four of these African genera have been bounced around. The evidence indicates they are basal Passeroidea. They are combined into a single family based on Barker et al. (2004), Beresford et al. (2005), and Johansson et al. (2008b). However, they may be two families, with the first containing only Promerops and the other three genera in Arcanatoridae (Johansson et al., 2008b).

Dicaeidae: Flowerpeckers

2 genera, 48 species HBW-13

The flowerpeckers and sunbirds are sister families (Barker et al., 2004; Ericson and Johansson, 2003). Some merge them as Nectariniidae (e.g., Sibley and Monroe, 1990; Christidis and Boles, 2008). I don't have much information on the internal structure of the flowerpeckers. Jønsson and Fjeldså's tree (2006a) suggests that generic limits need changing.

Nectariniidae: Sunbirds

16 genera, 136 species HBW-13

The tree in Jønsson and Fjeldså (2006a) doesn't provide sufficient information to reorgranize this family in a reasonable way. However, it makes clear that such changes are sorely needed. The order here is close to that in HBW-13 (del Hoyo et al., 2008).

Although I had earlier substituted Anthodiaeta in place of Hedydipna, following corrigenda-8 to the Howard and Moore checklist (Dickinson et al., 2003), this seems to be incorrect. See Alan Peterson's analysis at zoonomen.net. Accordingly, I've restored Hedydipna.

Irenidae: Fairy Bluebirds

1 genus, 2 species HBW-10

Whether the fairy bluebirds and leafbirds of Indomalaya should be united in the same family remains an open question. Depending on how you look at the data, they are either sisters, or else the fairy bluebirds are sister to the leafbirds plus the remaining passerida (Barker et al, 2002, 2004; Beresford et al., 2004). In the second case, they have to be in different families. This possibility is the main reason for leaving them in separate families.

Chloropseidae: Leafbirds

1 genus, 11 species HBW-10

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