Polytminae is one of the six

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zool ...

of the hummingbird

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Trochilidae Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

. The subfamily contains 12 genera with a total of 29 species. The informal name "mangoes" has been proposed for this group as the seven species in the largest genus, ''

Anthracothorax The mangos, ''Anthracothorax'', are a non-migratory genus of hummingbirds in the subfamily Trochilinae native to the Neotropics. The genus ''Anthracothorax'' was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1831. The type species was s ...

'', include "mango" in their common name.

Taxonomy

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study of the hummingbirds published in 2007 found that the family consisted of nine

clades In biology, a clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach to taxonomy ...

. When

Edward Dickinson Edward Dickinson (January 1, 1803 – June 16, 1874) was an American politician from Massachusetts. He is also known as the father of the poet Emily Dickinson; their family home in Amherst, the Emily Dickinson Museum, is a museum dedicated to h ...

and James Van Remsen, Jr. updated the ''

Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World The ''Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World'' is a book by Richard Howard and Alick Moore which presents a list of the bird species of the world. It was the first single-volume world bird list to include subspecies names, ...

'' for the 4th edition in 2013 they divided the nine clades into six

and proposed using the Latin name Polytminae for the "mango" clade, a name that had been introduced by

Ludwig Reichenbach Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist, ornithologist and illustrator. It was he who first requested Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate m ...

in 1849. Pre-molecular studies did not anticipate the existence of this clade, but a common feature is the presence of serrations on the cutting edge of the bill. An extreme example is the tooth-billed hummingbird (''Androdon aequatorialis''). Molecular phylogenetic studies by Jimmy McGuire and collaborators published between 2007 and 2014 determined the relationships between the major groups of hummingbirds. In the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below, the English names are those introduced in 1997. The Latin names are those proposed by Dickinson and Remsen in 2013. The phylogenetic relationships between the genera in the subfamily Polytminae, as determined in the 2014 study, are shown below. The genus ''

Eulampis The caribs are a genus, ''Eulampis'', of hummingbirds in the family Trochilidae. The genus contains two species, both of which are endemic to the islands of the Caribbean. The genus name comes from the Ancient Greek word ''eulampēs'' meaning 'b ...

'' was found to be nested within ''

'', making ''Anthracothorax''

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

. No species from the genus ''

Augastes The visorbearers are hummingbirds in the bitypic genus ''Augastes'' in the family Trochilidae Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and ...

'' was sampled in the molecular studies, but based on a comparison of plumage features and bill shapes, it is believed that ''Augastes'' is closely related to ''Schistes''.

Taxonomy

Taxonomic list

References

Sources