The typical warblers are small

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s belonging to the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Sylvia'' in the "Old World warbler" (or sylviid warbler)

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 ...

Sylviidae Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that includes the typical warblers ''Sylvia'', and closely related genus '' Curruca'', formerly included in ''Sylvia''. They are found in Eurasia and Africa, with the greatest diversity in the Mediterrane ...

.Del Hoyo, J.; Elliot, A., & Christie, D. (editors). (2006). ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

''. Volume 11: Old World Flycatchers to Old World Warblers. Lynx Edicions. . There are seven species in the genus.Helbig, A. J. (2001). The characteristics of the genus: Phylogeny and biogeography of the genus ''Sylvia''. Pages 24–28 in: Shirihai, H., Gargallo, G., Helbig, A. J., & Harris, A. ''Sylvia Warblers''. Helm Identification Guides Jønsson, K. A. & Fjeldså, J. (2006). A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). '' Zool. Scripta'' 35 (2): 149–186. (HTML abstract) Typical warblers occur in the

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

regions of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, western and central

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, with the highest species diversity centred on the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

. They are strongly built, with stouter legs and a slightly thicker bill than many other

warbler Various Passeriformes (perching birds) are commonly referred to as warblers. They are not necessarily closely related to one another, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal, and insectivorous. Sylvioid warblers T ...

s. The

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

is in varying shades of grey and brown, usually darker above and paler below, with bluish or pinkish tones in several species; several also have orange-brown or

rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish- red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a d ...

fringed wing feathers. The tail is square-ended in most, slightly rounded in a few, and in several species has white sides. Many of the species show some

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

, with distinctive male and female

s, with the males in many having black or bright grey on the heads, replaced by brown, brownish-grey or similar dusky colours in females; about a third of the species also have a conspicuous red eye ring in males. Species breeding in cool temperate regions are strongly migratory, while most of those in warmer regions are partially migratory or resident. They are active warblers usually associated with open woodland, scrub, hedges or shrubs. Their diet is largely insectivorous, though several species also eat fruit extensively, mainly small berries such as elder and

ivy ''Hedera'', commonly called ivy (plural ivies), is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to Western Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern ...

, particularly from late summer to late winter; one species (blackcap) also frequently takes a wide variety of human-provided foods on birdtables in winter.

Taxonomy and systematics

The genus ''Sylvia'' was introduced in 1769 by the Italian naturalist

Giovanni Antonio Scopoli Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Johannes Antonius Scopolius) (3 June 1723 – 8 May 1788) was an Italians, Italian physician and natural history, naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first ...

. Scopoli did not specify a

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

but this was designated as the Eurasian blackcap (''Sylvia atricapilla'') by

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist, and a nephew of Napoleon. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal ...

in 1828. The genus name is from

Modern Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

''silvia'', a woodland sprite, related to ''silva'' meaning "a wood". The typical warblers are now known to form a major lineage in a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, 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 t ...

containing also the

parrotbill The parrotbills are a family, Paradoxornithidae, of passerine birds that are primarily native to East, Southeast and South Asia, with a single species in western North America, though feral populations exist elsewhere. They are generally small ...

s and some

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

formerly considered to be

Old World babbler The Old World babblers or Timaliidae, are a family (biology), family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft, fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the g ...

s. The other "Old World warblers" have been moved to their own families, entirely redelimiting the

. 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 using

mitochondrial A mitochondrion () is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used ...

DNA sequence data published in 2011 found that the species in the genus ''Sylvia'' formed two distinct clades. Based on these results, the ornithologists Edward Dickinson and

Leslie Christidis Leslie Christidis (born 30 May 1959), also simply known as Les Christidis, is an Australian ornithologist. His main research field is the evolution and systematics of birds. He has been director of Southern Cross University National Marine Scien ...

in the fourth edition of ''

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, ...

'', chose to split the genus and moved most of the species into a resurrected genus '' Curruca'' retaining only the Eurasian blackcap and the

garden warbler The garden warbler (''Sylvia borin'') is a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to western Siberia. It is a plain, long-winged and long-tailed typical warbler with brown upperparts and dull white ...

in ''Sylvia''. In an additional change they moved the African hill babbler from ''Horizorhinus'' and Dohrn's warbler from ''Pseudoalcippe'' into ''Sylvia''. The split was at first not made by the

British Ornithologists' Union The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds (ornithology) around the world in order to understand their biology and aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henry Baker ...

on the grounds that "a split into two genera would unnecessarily destabilize nomenclature and results in only a minor increase in phylogenetic information content", but then later accepted in 2021.

Extant species

The genus as currently circumscribed includes the following species: * Eurasian blackcap ''Sylvia atricapilla'' *

Garden warbler The garden warbler (''Sylvia borin'') is a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to western Siberia. It is a plain, long-winged and long-tailed typical warbler with brown upperparts and dull white ...

''Sylvia borin'' * Dohrn's warbler ''Sylvia dohrni'' * Abyssinian catbird ''Sylvia galinieri'' * Bush blackcap ''Sylvia nigricapillus'' * African hill babbler ''Sylvia abyssinica'' * Rwenzori hill babbler ''Sylvia atriceps''

References

External links

Typical warbler videos
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Authority control Taxa named by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli

Taxonomy and systematics

Extant species

References

Further reading

External links