Thrashers are a New World group of
passerine
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s related to
mockingbirds and
New World catbirds. Like these, they are in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Mimidae. There are 15 species in one large and 4
monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...
.
These do not form a
clade but are a
phenetic
In biology, phenetics ( el, phainein – to appear) , also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually in morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary re ...
assemblage. It is rather likely than not — though by no means robustly supported — that the
sage thrasher is a
basal
Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''.
Science
* Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure
* Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...
lineage among a group also consisting of
mockingbirds and ''
Toxostoma'' thrashers. The
Caribbean thrashers occupy varying positions in an assemblage consisting of them, the
tremblers, and the
New World catbirds. Here, the
white-breasted thrasher appears to be quite basal though it is impossible to place it anywhere with certainty, whereas the
pearly-eyed thrasher
The pearly-eyed thrasher (''Margarops fuscatus'') is a bird in the thrasher family Mimidae. It is found on many Caribbean islands, from the Bahamas in the north to the Grenadines in the south, with an isolated subspecies on Bonaire.
Descripti ...
is probably quite close to the tremblers. (Hunt ''et al.'' 2001, Barber ''et al.'' 2004)
Their common name describes the behaviour of these birds when searching for food on the ground: they use their long bills to "thrash" through dirt or dead leaves. All of these birds eat
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
s and several species also eat berries.
Taxonomic list
References
* Barber, Brian R.; Martínez-Gómez, Juan E. & Peterson, A. Townsend (2004): Systematic position of the Socorro mockingbird ''Mimodes graysoni''. ''
J. Avian Biol.'' 35: 195–198.
(HTML abstract)
* Hunt, Jeffrey S.; Bermingham, Eldredge; & Ricklefs, Robert E. (2001): Molecular systematics and biogeography of Antillean thrashers, tremblers, and mockingbirds (Aves: Mimidae). ''
Auk'' 118(1): 35–55.
DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2001)118 035:MSABOA.0.CO;2HTML fulltext without images
External links
Thrasher videoson the Internet Bird Collection
{{Authority control
Mimidae
*
Bird common names