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How many monospecific families have you seen? (1 Viewer)

So does this mean I can add Yellow-breasted Chat and Magpie Goose if I'm willing to delete Ostrich, Osprey, Bristlehead, Danacobius, and Bananaquit? Does anyone have any more I can add to make up the difference??
 
Mysticete said:
there is uncertainty over where the hell Yellow-breasted Chat goes, so you could TEMPORARILY consider it a monotypic family
Click to expand...

Oh, can I? Thank you very much, I think I will.

Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteriadae, presumably).

And I'm keeping all of the others too, because it makes me happy to.;)

James
 
presumably it is Icteriidae (not to be confused with Icteridae!)

To make things more confusingly, unpublished info I saw a long time ago suggested that Icteriidae was sister to Icteridae. Thankfully they suggested just lumping with the latter family.

Donocobiidae, Pityriaseidae, and Anserantidae are perfectly valid monotypic families
 
I've got:

Dromaiidae Emu
Pandionidae Osprey
Opisthocomidae Hoatzin
Aramidae Limpkin
Eurypygidae Sunbittern
Steatornithidae Oilbird


I guess also Anseranatidae Magpie Goose and Coerebidae Bananaquit. What is going on with Yellow-breasted Boatbill? Is that considered a true Monarch Flycatcher? (edit: nevermind, I see that there are two species in this genus)

Carlos
 
As per my 4th ed. Clements:

Struthionidae (Ostrich)
Scopidae (Hamerkop)
Pandionidae (Osprey)
Sagittariidae (Secretary-bird)
Aramidae (Limpkin)
Opisthocomidae (Hoatzin)
Donacobiidae (Donacobius)
Peucedramidae (Olive Warbler)
Coerebidae (Bananaquit)

I am happy with this for the time being!
 
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Has really not anybody seen a Hoopoe? :) That's probably the most famous monotypic family (Upupidae) ever, quite surprised not having seen it here .
 
I've seen them all except Stitchbird, Bristlehead and Hypocolius. I think all of them are fairly straightforward although it is a challenge to see "Cat A" Stitchbird now.

cheers, alan
 
opisska said:
Has really not anybody seen a Hoopoe? :) That's probably the most famous monotypic family (Upupidae) ever, quite surprised not having seen it here .
Click to expand...

I'm afraid Hoopoe is no longer considered monotypic (at least under IOC taxonomy), which lists 3 extant and 1 extinct species.
 
DMW said:
I'm afraid Hoopoe is no longer considered monotypic (at least under IOC taxonomy), which lists 3 extant and 1 extinct species.
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My bad, I had old information. I just knew Hoopoe as the monotypic bird, so did not do any research, sorry.
 
How many monotypic families have you seen (and where did you see them?)

In planning my next few world birding trips, I'm trying to knock off a few more of the monotypic families, and that set me thinking - how many have I seen / got left to see, and how many destinations do I have to visit to get a full set? The current Clements list has 30 of them. Here's the full list:

Ostrich, Emu, Shoebill, Hamerkop, Secretary-bird, Osprey, Kagu, Sunbittern, Limpkin, Magellanic Plover, Egyptian Plover, Ibisbill, Plains-wanderer, Crab Plover, Hoatzin, Oilbird, Cuckoo-Roller, Sapayoa, Sharpbill, Stitchbird, Bornean Bristlehead, Malaysian Rail-babbler, Bearded Reedling, Wallcreeper, Black-capped Donacobius, Przevalski's Rosefinch, Palmchat, Hylocitrea, Hypocolius, Olive Warbler

My personal total is a rather lowly 9:

Emu (inland southeast Australia)
Hamerkop (several sites in the Gambia)
Osprey (everywhere)
Limpkin (around Orlando, Florida)
Egyptian Plover (An upriver trip in the Gambia)
Ibisbill (in the river at Ramnagar, Uttarakhand)
Plains-wanderer (on a Phil Maher night-time trip in Deniliquin)
Bearded Reedling (at about a dozen sites in England, plus one in Switzerland)
Wallcreeper (in Ramnagar, on view at the same time as the Ibisbills; on a rock-face in the Pyrenees; and a copulating pair in a gorge near Leuk, Switzerland)

I need to visit at least another 13 very widely-scattered locations in order to see all the remaining ones.

Loads of people on here will have seen more than 20, I'm sure, but has anyone seen the full set?

And what is the most you've seen on a single trip? It looks like four could be achievable in some African or South American countries.
 
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To add another angle, the IOC list has three extra monotypic families, of which I've seen two:
Magpie Goose (on a pond in Gatton, SE Queensland)
Scrub Warbler (En Avdat gorge, Israel)
Bananaquit
and splits Common and Somali ostriches, giving 32 in total (plus several Incertae Sedis that might well end up as further monotypic families in due course).
 
chris butterworth said:
There's already a monotypic thread Steve.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=194776&page=2&highlight=monotypic+families

Chris
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out Chris, I'll get the mods to merge this in.

Clements has upgraded quite a few taxa to families since the thread was started, so it'll be interesting to hear what people's current proportions are. Reading through the list, it seems my total isn't quite as lowly as I thought. I see that you were past half-way back then - have you seen more since? Alan looks like he's closest to the full set, with just three gaps when he posted, although Larry (S) was keeping his cards close to his chest :)
 
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