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Robins are flycatchers? (3 Viewers)

Pete Mella

Getting there...
Read this in the European Robin's page...

The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) or, in Europe, simply Robin is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family, but is now considered to belong to the Old World flycatchers (Muscicapidae).

Really? I can't keep up!
 
Well, if you think of a Robin as a Chat, and consider that the Chats are now part of the Flycatcher family (Muscicapidae) instead of the Thrush family (Turdidae), it makes more sense. Although some Asian birds that look like "chats" are now Thrushes...

The genera Luscinia, Erithacus and Tarsiger do not delimit "true" groups either, so expect more trouble there (but be assured that this will mostly affect Asian birds).
 
The genera Luscinia, Erithacus and Tarsiger do not delimit "true" groups either, so expect more trouble there (but be assured that this will mostly affect Asian birds).

JH,
Yes, it will be interesting... There is another genus for which I have really heard nothing in the offing and so mine is only wondering..., that is, what are the parameters by which all of the species now in genus Ficedula are defined as being related and belonging to this genus? As I said, just a passing thought!
 
Last year an article by Outlaw and Voelker in Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. stated that most Ficedula are a monophyletic group (including Muscicapella; sister to Tarsiger), with solitaris and monileger in Anthipes (near Niltava/Cyornis). How they relate to the other robins/nightingales remains a mystery...
 
Last year an article by Outlaw and Voelker in Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. stated that most Ficedula are a monophyletic group (including Muscicapella; sister to Tarsiger), with solitaris and monileger in Anthipes (near Niltava/Cyornis). How they relate to the other robins/nightingales remains a mystery...

I've not seen the article but the abstract is here:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=40575f1a8312523ac7cfc193b534668f

and it reckons that Tarsiger is closest to Ficedula. Best way is to think of the flycatchers in that family as 'modified chats'.
Rock Thrushes are also chats apparently! :h?:
 
Maybe you guys can clear something up for me once and for all here:

I grew up undestanding that the European Robin was a member of the Thrush family.

Later I learned that it is a Chat.

Now........ the relationship between a Chat and a Flycatcher I can easily understand but a Thrush? considering the obvious physical characteristics of a European Robin, the European Robin as a Thrush always seemed just a little odd to me given that I am not academically; a taxonomist (by any stretch of the imagination).

When I first noticed that the European Robin is a Chat; I began to wonder if there had possibly been some historical confusion between the European Robin (that looks like a Chat) as a Chat and the American Robin (that looks like a Thrush) as a Thrush.

Was an element of confusion introduced by that means or is it purely coincidental?
 
All chats (not just robin) were formerly considered close relatives (in same family) of thrushes. Not sure why but certain it had nothing to do with confusion between american and european robins!
Now family relationships are being revised based on new evidence (generally DNA based) and most(?) chats are thought to be more closely related to flycatchers than to thrushes.
 
Whereas there are several Australian flycatchers which are actually robins, and the chats are actually honeyeaters, and none of them are even slightly related to the thrushes, or indeed any of the other birds mentioned in this thread. Nice to see that confusion and complexity isn't confined to this side of the equator!
 
Muscicapidae

Ah, just lump thrushes, chats and flycatchers. Much easier...
...which is BOU's latest approach, lumping Turdidae with Muscicapidae (although just pushing the problem down a level by retaining Turdinae and Muscicapinae as subfamilies).

Richard
 
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Its definitely time the Americans bit the bullet and stopped calling their fake a robin at all. North American Red-breasted Thrush would be much more accurate and would fit with their tradition of fouling up perfectly good names with a history of more than two hundred years.

John
 

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