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

3 genera, 48 species HBW-13

Dicaeidae tree 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). Nyári et al. (2009) sampled nearly two-thirds of the flowerpeckers. They found two major clades, with members of Dicaeum in both clades. I've moved the Dicaeum in the Prionochilus clade to Pachyglossa (Blyth 1843, type melanoxantha), along with several untested species that are likely also in that group (vincens, annae, aeruginosa, propria).

It's not entirely clear where the Olive-backed Flowerpecker, Prionochilus olivaceus, goes. The Bayesian and maximum likelihood trees in Nyári et al. put it sister to Pachyglossa and the remaining Prionochilus, respectively. That it is basal in the clade cannot be ruled out either. I'm treating it as the basal member of Prionochilus, but it may need its own genus.

within Dicaeum proper, the anthonyi-quadricolor group is the basal group. The next branch is likely aureolimbatum through retrocinctum, followed by the sister species nigrilore and hypoleucum.

The remaining Dicaeum form a well-supported clade which appears to consist of three subclades: pygmaeum-virescens, sanguinolentum-maugei, and celebicum-tristrami. Note that the Mistletoebird does not appear to be that closely related to the sanguinolentum, even though they have sometimes been regarded as conspecific.

Within the celebicum-tristrami clade, celebicum is basal. Next are the sister species ignipectus and monticolum. Interestingly, all three of these have also been considered conspecific with the Mistletoebird (hirundinaceum). Nonetheless, they also don't seem to be so closely related. Rather, the Mistletoebird seems to be more closely related to the remaining species, and particularly the Red-capped Flowerpecker (geelvinkianum). Only five of the eleven species in the hirundinaceum-tristrami group were sampled, and except for the Mistletoebird, I've adopted the arrangement in HBW, which is consistent with the maximum likelihood tree of Nyári et al. (2009).

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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