Euoscines

Brown treecreeper Climacteris picumnus, photographed by Fir0002.

Belongs within: Passeriformes.
Contains: Meliphagoidea, Corvides, Passerides, Ptilonorhynchidae.

The Euoscines comprise the songbirds, a major and diverse grouping within the Passeriformes. Euoscines are characterised by the presence of four pairs of intrinsic muscles associated with the syrinx; other Passeriformes have less. A number of basal lineages within the Euoscines are concentrated in the Australasian region; the sister group to all other Euoscines is a clade uniting the bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae) with the Australasian treecreepers (Climacteridae), a group of small, stout insectivorous birds with slightly down-curved bills and short, robust legs with long toes and claws (Internet Bird Collection) that feed by foraging along bark and on the ground. The recently extinct piopios of the genus Turnagra, thrush-like birds from New Zealand, are also commonly regarded as belonging to this clade as close relatives of the bowerbirds.

<==Euoscines [Accentorinae, Corvida, Liotrichidae, Phyllorninae, Phyllornithidae, Polymyodi]
    |--+--Meliphagoidea JF11
    |  `--+--+--Orthonychidae [Ornythoncidae] OF19
    |     |  |    |--Sphenostoma Gould 1838 [Sphenostomidae] B94
    |     |  |    |    `--S. cristatum Gould 1838 [incl. S. cristatum occidentale Mathews 1912] WS48
    |     |  |    `--Orthonyx Temminck 1820 [=Ornythoncus (l. c.)] B94
    |     |  |         |  i. s.: O. kaldowinyeri OF19
    |     |  |         |         O. spinicauda R66
    |     |  |         |--O. temminckii BKB15
    |     |  |         `--+--O. novaeguineae BKB15
    |     |  |            `--O. spaldingii BKB15
    |     |  `--Pomatostomus Cabanis 1851 B94 [Pomatostomidae OF19, Pomatostominae]
    |     |       |--P. isidorei JT12
    |     |       `--+--+--P. halli JT12
    |     |          |  `--P. temporalis (Vigors & Horsfield 1827) JT12, WS48 [=Pomatorhinus temporalis WS48]
    |     |          |       |--P. t. temporalis WS48
    |     |          |       `--P. t. rubeculus (Gould 1839) (see below for synonymy) WS48
    |     |          `--+--P. ruficeps JT12
    |     |             `--P. superciliosus (Vigors & Horsfield 1827) JT12, WS48 (see below for synonymy)
    |     `--+--Corvides OF19
    |        `--Passerides OF19
    `--+--+--Ptilonorhynchidae JF11
       |  `--Turnagra Lesson 1837 (see below for synonymy) CC10
       |       |--T. capensis (Sparrman 1787) [=Tanagra capensis] CC10
       |       |    |--T. c. capensis (see below for synonymy) CC10
       |       |    `--T. c. minor Fleming 1915 CC10
       |       `--T. tanagra (Schlegel 1865) (see below for synonymy) CC10
       `--Climacteridae JF11
            |--Cormobates BKB15
            |    |--C. leucophaeus (Latham 1802) [incl. Climacteris scandens Temminck 1824] CC10
            |    |    |--C. l. leucophaeus [incl. C. l. grisescens, C. l. metastasis] M03
            |    |    |--C. l. intermedius M03
            |    |    `--C. l. minor M03
            |    `--C. placens BKB15
            `--Climacteris Temminck 1820 B94
                 |  i. s.: C. affinis Blyth 1864 WS48
                 |           |--C. a. affinis WS48
                 |           `--C. a. superciliosa North 1895 [incl. C. erythrops neositta Mathews 1912] WS48
                 |         C. leucophaea (Latham 1801) MW91
                 |         C. melanurus Gould 1842 JT12, WS48
                 |           |--C. m. melanurus WS48
                 |           `--C. m. wellsi Ogilvie-Grant 1909 [incl. Whitlocka wellsi straita Mathews 1923] WS48
                 |         C. pyrrhonota R87
                 |--C. erythrops JT12
                 `--+--C. picumnus JT12
                    |    |--C. p. picumnus M03
                    |    `--C. p. melanota M03
                    `--C. rufus Gould 1840 JT12, WS48 [incl. C. rufa obscura Carter 1910 WS48]

Pomatostomus superciliosus (Vigors & Horsfield 1827) JT12, WS48 [=Pomatorhinus superciliosus WS48; incl. Pomatorhinus superciliosus ashbyi Mathews 1911 WS48, Pomatorhinus superciliosus gwendolenae Mathews 1912 WS48]

Pomatostomus temporalis rubeculus (Gould 1839) [=Pomatorhinus rubeculus; incl. Pomatorhinus temporalis nigrescens Mathews 1912] WS48

Turnagra Lesson 1837 [incl. Ceropia Sundevall 1857, Keropia Gray 1840, Otagon Bonaparte 1851; Keropiidae, Turnagridae] CC10

Turnagra capensis capensis (Sparrman 1787) [incl. Turdus crassirostris Gmelin 1789, *Ceropia crassirostris, *Keropia crassirostris, Otagon crassirostris, Turnagra crassirostris, Campephaga ferruginea Vieillot 1817, Tanagra macularia Quoy & Gaimard in Dumont d’Urville 1830, *Turnagra macularia, Loxia turdus Forster in Lichtenstein 1844, *Otagon turdus, Turnagra turdus] CC10

Turnagra tanagra (Schlegel 1865) [=Otagon tanagra, Keropia tanagra, Turnagra capensis tanagra; incl. T. hectori Buller 1869] CC10

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[B94] Bock, W. J. 1994. History and nomenclature of avian family-group names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 222: 1–281.

[BKB15] Burleigh, J. G., R. T. Kimball & E. L. Braun. 2015. Building the avian tree of life using a large-scale, sparse supermatrix. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 84: 53–63.

[CC10] Checklist Committee (OSNZ). 2010. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica 4^th ed. Ornithological Society of New Zealand and Te Papa Press: Wellington.

[JT12] Jetz, W., G. H. Thomas, J. B. Joy, K. Hartmann & A. Ø. Mooers. 2012. The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491: 444–448.

[JF11] Jønsson, K. A., P.-H. Fabre, R. E. Ricklefs & J. Fjeldså. 2011. Major global radiation of corvoid birds originated in the proto-Papuan archipelago. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 108 (6): 2328–2333.

[MW91] Millener, P. R., & T. H. Worthy. 1991. Contributions to New Zealand’s late Quaternary avifauna. II: Dendroscansor decurvirostris, a new genus and species of wren (Aves: Acanthisittidae). Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 21: 179–200.

[M03] Morcombe, M. 2003. Field Guide to Australian Birds 2^nd ed. Steve Parish Publishing.

[OF19] Oliveros, C. H., D. J. Field, D. T. Ksepka, F. K. Barker, A. Aleixo, M. J. Andersen, P. Alström, B. W. Benz, E. L. Braun, M. J. Braun, G. A. Bravo, R. T. Brumfield, R. T. Chesser, S. Claramunt, J. Cracraft, A. M. Cuervo, E. P. Derryberry, T. C. Glenn, M. G. Harvey, P. A. Hosner, L. Joseph, R. T. Kimball, A. L. Mack, C. M. Miskelly, A. T. Peterson, M. B. Robbins, F. H. Sheldon, L. F. Silveira, B. T. Smith, N. D. White, R. G. Moyle & B. C. Faircloth. 2019. Earth history and the passerine superradiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 116 (16): 7916–7925.

[R66] Ramsay, E. P. 1866. Remarks upon the new species of Atrichia and on A. clamosa of the west coast. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1866: 439–440.

[R87] Ramsay, E. P. 1887. Descriptions of Australian birds' eggs. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, series 2, 1 (4): 1141–1152, pl. 19.

[WS48] Whittell, H. M., & D. L. Serventy. 1948. A systematic list of the birds of Western Australia. Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of Western Australia, Special Publication 1: 1–126.

Last updated: 26 July 2019.