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More Babbler shuffling! (1 Viewer)

I make you a short summary

SYLVIIDAE:
Two recognized genera : Sylvia and Curruca. Parophasma and Lioptilus are synonyms of Sylvia

PARADOXORNITHIDAE:
Psittiparus, Conostoma, Cholornis --> Paradoxornis (I didn't follow this recommendation, I kept Conostoma, Cholornis and Psittiparus and placed Paradoxornis heudei in Calamornis); Neosuthora, Chleuasicus, Sinosuthora -->Suthora (same remark, I kept the current genera)

ZOSTEROPIDAE:
Parayuhina gen. nov. for ''Yuhina'' diademata, Parayuhina diademata comb. nov.;
Yuhina torqueola, castaniceps and everetti --> Staphida
Some unsampled genera such as Rukia, Megazosterops or the type species of Heleia (Heleia muelleri) are not included and remain uncertain. I temporally placed Heleia in synonymy with Apalopteron pending further studies

Parayuhina gen. nov.
Type species: Parayuhina diademata (Verreaux, 1869) comb. nov.
Diagnosis : 14–18 cm in length, 15–29 g; mostly greyish-brown plumage with a darker brown erectable crest, prominent white supercilium/nuchal collar from above the eye across the nape, contrastingly blackish basal parts of primaries and secondaries, and white underwing-coverts; shallowly forked tail; and pale yellowish/orange legs. Differs from Staphida in lacking broad white tips to the outer tail feathers, and from Yuhina by its larger size, slightly forked tail and absence of streaks on head or flanks. Sexes similar.
Etymology : This feminine name is based on the name previously used for a group of crested
babblers, Yuhina, that proved to be paraphyletic based on phylogenetic results. This name was
itself based on the Nepalese word for these birds, “Yuhin” (Richmond, 1992). We add the prefix
Para, from Ancient Greek παρά “near”, to remind the fact that this taxon does not form a monophyletic group with the other yuhinas.
Remarks: A monospecific genus. Occurs in forested mountainous areas of central and south
China, north-east Myanmar and north Vietnam.

TIMALIIDAE:
Rhopocichla-->Dumetia under the name Dumetia atriceps. I kept Rhopocichla as distinct genus. Garrulax calvus and Garrulax lugubris are members of family Timaliidae, thus Melanocichla is restored.

PELLORNEIDAE:
Trichastoma and Pellorneum albiventre -->Pellorneum (tentative)
Pellorneum Swainson, 1832, as currently defined, is also polyphyletic. Because the type species (ruficeps) forms a clade with P. capistratum, one option could be to move the species albiventre to the genus Trichastoma Blyth, 1842. However, the limits between these two closely related genera have often been debated (Deignan, 1964; Delacour, 1946), and several species have not been sampled yet in genetic studies (Pellorneum nigrocapitatum, P. fuscocapillus, P. palustre and Trichastoma buettikoferi). Although the divergence between the two genera is older than 10 Ma, we suggest to merge all species within the senior name Pellorneum, in agrement with Eaton et al. (2016). This group would then unite all species with similar ground-foraging ecology and adaptations
They propose to merge Rimator within Napothera despite their distinctiveness (I didn't follow this suggestion).

ALCIPPEIDAE fam. nov. New family including only the genus Alcippe

LEIOTHRICHIDAE:
Siva, Sibia and Chrysominla --> Actinodura (Despite their close relationship, I kept these four genera).
Chatarrhaea, ''Garrulax'' cinereifrons --> Argya. Argya is split from Turdoides.
Acanthoptila nipalensis, Phyllanthus and Kupeornis --> Turdoides. I kept Acanthoptila and Phyllanthus as distinct genera but placed Kupeornis in synonymy within Phyllanthus
Pterorhinus is restored to include several species previously classified in the genera Garrulax, Dryonastes, Babax .....
 
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You also have a personal list of birds? :t:

Oui, but in a increasingly fluid state.
Scratch the previous comment re. Sylviidae. That was my preference until I started 'playing catch-up' especially in the areas of "temporal banding". Interesting times ahead :t:

Looking at the Leiothrichidae tree it's difficult to resist the urge to chip away at the remainder of the larger laughingthrush genera eg. Strophocincla for some of the plainer species currently in Trochalopteron?
I like the names you created for certain laughingthrush clades on another thread (I wont quote them and ruin the googlewhack ;)) and have used some in my notes.

Re. the three species of 'laughingthrush' relocated elsewhere. I imagine these should probably be renamed 'babbler'
 
Looking at the Leiothrichidae tree it's difficult to resist the urge to chip away at the remainder of the larger laughingthrush genera eg. Strophocincla for some of the plainer species currently in Trochalopteron?

If you want to separate the genus in two (that's what I did, personally), use Pterocyclus instead of Strophocincla . For me, the genus Trochalopteron consists of the following species:

Trochalopteron austeni Godwin-Austen, 1870
Trochalopteron imbricatum (Blyth, 1843)
Trochalopteron lineatum (Vigors, 1831)
Trochalopteron squamatum (Gould, 1835)
Trochalopteron subunicolor Blyth, 1843
Trochalopteron virgatum Godwin-Austen, 1874

The remaining becomes Pterocyclus .

I like the names you created for certain laughingthrush clades on another thread (I wont quote them and ruin the googlewhack ;)) and have used some in my notes.

Spodiocara [literally grey head] (for Argya cinereifrons), Daphoenocichla [red thrush] (as a subgenus of Liocichla, but I realized that it was useless), and Leucocrotapha [white temple] (as a new genus for ''Yuhina'' diademata, now Parayuhina)

Parayuhina, Paragallinula, Paraclaravis, it's an overdose of Para-something

The three species of Dasycrotapha have nothing in common, plateni and pygmaea merit their own genus (''Ixocerthia")

Re. the three species of 'laughingthrush' relocated elsewhere. I imagine these should probably be renamed 'babbler'

which?
 
If you want to separate the genus in two (that's what I did, personally), use Pterocyclus...

Oh yes, I'd forgot about Pterocyclus. That's three genera for me then :t:


Spodiocara [literally grey head] (for Argya cinereifrons), Daphoenocichla [red thrush]...

Aha, not those but they work just as well!


Garrulax lugubris & calvus - Whoopingthrushes might be a better name ;)

And Garrulax cinereifrons (Malcolmia, Spodiocara, Pseudargya or Spodiocichla?)
 
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TiF Update October 24

I've made many changes in the babbler clade based on the recent paper by Cai et al. (2018). Most of the changes have been minor. Nonetheless, there have been changes to Sylviidae, Paradoxornithidae, Timaliidae, Pellorneidae, Alcippeidae, and Leiothrichidae. Zosteropidae will be affected too, but things are more complex there and with one exception will wait for a later update.

The following changes deserve mention:

The Abyssinian Catbird, Parophasma galinieri, becomes Sylvia galinieri. (Sylviidae)
Atraphornis and Melizophilus have been separated from Curruca. (Sylviidae)
The Reed Parrotbill, Paradoxornis heudei, becomes Calamornis heudei. (Paradoxornithidae)
Cholornis has been merged into Conostoma. (Paradoxornithidae)
Neosuthora has been merged into Suthora. (Paradoxornithidae)
Sinosuthora has been merged into Chleuasicus. (Paradoxornithidae)
The White-collared Yuhina, "Yuhina" diademata, becomes Parayuhina diademata. (Zosteropidae)
Trichastoma has been resplit from Pellorneum. (Pellorneidae)
I was previously doubtful about where the two species of Melanocichla belonged, but not nearly doubtful enough. Melanocichla has been moved to Timaliidae from Leiothrichidae. (Leiothrichidae)
Malcolmia, Chatarrhaea, and Malacocircus are subsumed in Argya. (Leiothrichidae)
Kupeornis has been merged into Phyllanthus. (Leiothrichidae)
Stactocichla merged into Leucodioptron. (Leiothrichidae)
[Sylvioidea III, 3.08]

I'm not opposed to split Adophoneus (type: Sylvia nisoria), Adornis (type: Motacilla hortensis ) and Parisoma (type: Sylvia subcaerulea) from Curruca

I kept Cholornis and Neosuthora as distinct genera, but merged Sinosuthora into Chleuasicus

Following Boyd, I've split Trichastoma from Pellorneum , but placed malaccense and cinereiceps in Anuropsis

Many of his change look similar to mine.
 
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Two new mitogenomes of Pellorneidae and a phylogeny of the superfamily Sylvioidea

Two new mitogenomes of Pellorneidae (Aves: Passeriformes) and a phylogeny of the superfamily Sylvioidea

Zuhao Huang, Feiyun Tu , Shan Tang

Australian Journal of Zoology

Abstract

The superfamily Sylvioidea contains the most diversified species within the Passerida. Grey-cheeked Fulvetta Alcippe morrisonia and Eyebrowed Wren-babbler Napothera epilepidota are special birds with a weak flight and live in lightly wooded or scrubland environments. In the present study, two new mitogenomes of A. morrisonia (KX376475) and N. epilepidota (KX831093) within the superfamily Sylvioidea were sequenced and their total lengths were 17,788 bp and 17,913 bp, respectively. Both mitogenomes comprised 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and two control regions (CR and CCR). Similar to most metazoans, both mitogenomes and their protein-coding genes encoded on the H-strand displayed typical positive AT skews and negative GC skews. Bayesian inference and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analyses were conducted based on partitioned data of mitogenomes and two identical topologies were observed. The family-level phylogenetic relationships ((((Pellorneidae, Leiothrichidae) Timaliidae) Zosteropidae) Sylviidae) among the superfamily Sylvioidea, were strongly supported. Within the family Pellorneidae, A. morrisonia clustered with N. epilepidota. Within Leiothrichidae, we further demonstrated that Babax lanceolatus was sister to Garrulax perspicillatus, and Spizixos semitorques was nested in the genus Pycnonotus based on mitogenomic data and we proposed that the generic placement of Spizixos should be reconsidered.

Accepted 11 October 2018
 
Spizixos semitorques was nested in the genus Pycnonotus based on mitogenomic data and we proposed that the generic placement of Spizixos should be reconsidered.

I look forward to seeing if the result is similar to Shakya and al.(2017) and Fuchs and al. (2018)
 
Within Leiothrichidae, we further demonstrated that Babax lanceolatus was sister to Garrulax perspicillatus, and Spizixos semitorques was nested in the genus Pycnonotus based on mitogenomic data and we proposed that the generic placement of Spizixos should be reconsidered.

Accepted 11 October 2018

!!! How on Earth did two bulbul genera end up placed in Leiothrichidae? ;)

I look forward to seeing if the result is similar to Shakya and al.(2017) and Fuchs and al. (2018)

Me too!
 
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