Tityridae is family of

suboscine The Tyranni (suboscines) are a suborder of passerine birds that includes more than 1,000 species, the large majority of which are South American. It is named after the type genus '' Tyrannus''. These have a different anatomy of the syrinx mus ...

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 ...

birds found in forest and woodland in the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bi ...

. The 45 species in this family were formerly spread over the families

Tyrannidae The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) are a family of passerine birds which occur throughout North and South America. They are considered the largest family of birds known to exist in the world, with more than 400 species. They are the most diver ...

, Pipridae and Cotingidae (''see

Taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

''). As yet, no widely accepted

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contra ...

exists for the family, although tityras and allies and tityras, mourners and allies have been used. They are small to medium-sized birds. Under current classification, the family ranges in size from the buff-throated purpletuft, at and , to the masked tityra, at up to and . Most have relatively short tails and large heads.

Taxonomy and systematics

The family Tityridae (as the subfamily Tityrinae) containing the genera ''Tityra'' and ''Pachyramphus'' was introduced by the English zoologist

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger broth ...

in 1840. Traditionally, the

genus 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 n ...

'' Laniocera'' was included in the family

, the genera '' Iodopleura'', '' Laniisoma'', '' Tityra'', '' Pachyramphus'' and '' Xenopsaris'' were included in the family Cotingidae, and ''

Schiffornis ''Schiffornis'' is a genus of bird in the family Tityridae. It has traditionally been placed in the manakin The manakins are a family, Pipridae, of small suboscine passerine birds. The group contains some 54 species distributed through the Am ...

'' was included in the family Pipridae. Three of these genera, ''Tityra'', ''Pachyramphus'' and ''Xenopsaris'', were later moved to Tyrannidae based on the morphology of their

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

and

syrinx In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx (Greek Σύριγξ) was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous god Pan, she ran to a river's edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs. In answer, s ...

. The existence of the family Tityridae (although simply treated as a clade) was first proposed in 1989 based on the morphology of several syringeal and

skeletal A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

features. The existence of this family has later been confirmed by multiple studies involving both mitochondrial DNA and

nuclear DNA Nuclear DNA (nDNA), or nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid, is the DNA contained within each cell nucleus of a eukaryotic organism. It encodes for the majority of the genome in eukaryotes, with mitochondrial DNA and plastid DNA coding for the rest. ...

. Evidence suggests there are two

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 ...

clades A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term ...

within this family, the first including the genera ''Schiffornis'', ''Laniocera'', and ''Laniisoma'' (with strong bootstrap support), and the second include ''Iodopleura'', ''Tityra'', ''Xenopsaris'', and ''Pachyramphus'' (with poor bootstrap support). A

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 passerine families published in 2019 sampled species from five genera in Tityridae. The resulting tree indicates that if the family Tityridae is defined to include the genera '' Oxyruncus'', '' Myiobius'' and ''

Onychorhynchus The royal flycatchers are a genus, ''Onychorhynchus'', of passerine birds in the family Tityridae. Names The specific epithet of the type species, ''coronatus'', and the common name of all the species in this genus, royal flycatcher, refer to ...

'' then it becomes

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

: a clade containing the genera '' Tityra'' and ''

'' is

to a clade that contains the genera ''Oxyruncus'', ''Myiobius'', ''Onychorhynchus'' and the family

Species

The family contains 45 species divided into 11 genera:

References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1069958 Bird families Tyranni Taxa named by George Robert Gray andnbsp;