There were two classes of birds: Oscines, who gave auspices via their singing; and Alites, who gave auspices via how they flew.Cic.
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The shrike-like tanager (Neothraupis fasciata), also known as the white-banded tanager, is the only member of the genus Neothraupis in the tanager family (Thraupidae), nine-primaried oscines of the Passeroidea.
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The White-browed Treecreeper (Climacteris affinis) is one of 7 species of Australo-Papuan endemic treecreepers (Family: Climacteridae). Prior to the development of molecular diagnostic techniques, the relationship of Climacteridae to other avian families was long debated. Phylogenetic analysis has since revealed the family to be most closely related to bowerbirds and catbirds (Family: Ptilonorhynchidae). Together these two families are thought to represent one of the most ancient linages of ‘songbirds’ (oscines, suborder Passeri), diverging early during the rise and radiation of oscines in Australia.
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The spindalises were traditionally considered aberrant tanagers of the family Thraupidae, but like the equally enigmatic bananaquit (Coereba flaveola), they are formally treated as incertae sedis (place uncertain) among the nine- primaried oscines until the recognition of the family spindalidae.
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The order is divided into three suborders, Tyranni (suboscines), Passeri (oscines), and the basal Acanthisitti. Oscines have the best control of their syrinx muscles among birds, producing a wide range of songs and other vocalizations (though some of them, such as the crows, do not sound musical to human beings); some such as the lyrebird are accomplished imitators. The acanthisittids or New Zealand wrens are tiny birds restricted to New Zealand, at least in modern times; they were long placed in Passeri. Pterylosis or the feather tracts in a typical passerine Most passerines are smaller than typical members of other avian orders.
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The female has olive upperparts and yellow underparts, but in Costa Rica and extreme western Panama (the sometimes recognized C. c. titanota) the throat and lower belly is whitish.Olson (1981). Systematic notes on certain Oscines from Panama and adjacent areas (Aves: Passeriformes). Prov. Biol. Soc. Wash.
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The Passeriformes is currently divided into three suborders: Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni (suboscines) and Passeri (oscines). The Passeri has been traditionally subdivided into two major groups recognized now as Corvida and Passerida respectively containing the large superfamilies Corvoidea and Meliphagoidea, as well as minor lineages, and the superfamilies Sylvioidea, Muscicapoidea, and Passeroidea but this arrangement has been found to be oversimplified. Since the mid-2000s, literally, dozens of studies have investigated the phylogeny of the Passeriformes and found that many families from Australasia traditionally included in the Corvoidea actually represent more basal lineages within oscines. Likewise, the traditional three- superfamily arrangement within the Passeri has turned out to be far more complex and will require changes in classification.
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Petrochelidon pyrrhonota 1894 The American cliff swallow belongs to the largest order and dominant avian group – Passeriformes. They are the perching birds, or the passerines. All the bird species in this order have 4 toes, 3 pointing forward and one pointing backwards, that enable them to perch with ease. The sub-order that the American cliff swallow belongs is Oscines (or Passeri), for the songbirds.
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The genus was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with the buff-throated saltator as the type species. The name is from the Latin saltator, saltatoris "dancer". The saltators as traditionally defined are apparently neither monophyletic nor allied with the cardinals. As already noted over 100 years ago,Ridgway (1901) they are a morphologically diverse group, encompassing generally robust and fairly drab nine-primaried oscines.
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The taxonomy of the New Zealand wrens has been a subject of considerable debate since their discovery, although they have long been known to be an unusual family. In the 1880s, Forbes assigned the New Zealand wrens to the suboscines related to the cotingas and the pittas (and gave the family the name Xenicidae). Later, they were thought to be closer to the ovenbirds and antbirds. Sibley's 1970 study comparing egg-white proteins moved them to the oscines, but later studies, including the 1982 DNA-DNA hybridization study, suggested the family was a sister taxon to the suboscines and the oscines. This theory has proven most robust since then and the New Zealand wrens might be the survivors of a lineage of passerines that was isolated when New Zealand broke away from Gondwana 82–85 million years ago (Mya),Ericson P, Christidis L, Cooper, A, Irestedt M, Jackson J, Johansson US, Norman JA. (2002).
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The Tyranni (suboscines) are a clade 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 musculature than the oscines (songbirds of the larger suborder Passeri), hence its common name of suboscines. The available morphological, DNA sequence, and biogeographical data, as well as the (scant) fossil record, agree that these two major passerine suborders are evolutionarily distinct clades.
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In most bird classifications, this group is placed at the end of the taxonomic sequence. In the Sibley–Ahlquist classification, the nine- primaried oscines are treated as a single family (Fringillidae sensu Sibley & Ahlquist). As noted above, this is not correct as they defined it, and in any case has not found widespread support. A more common scheme, often used by American ornithologists, is to treat most of these groups in a vastly expanded Emberizidae, but this is also likely to be overlumping.
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The New Zealand wrens are a family (Acanthisittidae) of tiny passerines endemic to New Zealand. They were represented by six known species in four or five genera, although only two species survive in two genera today. They are understood to form a distinct lineage within the passerines, but authorities differ on their assignment to the oscines or suboscines (the two suborders that between them make up the Passeriformes). More recent studies suggest that they form a third, most ancient, suborder Acanthisitti and have no living close relatives at all.
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A passerine is any bird of the order Passeriformes (Latin passer (“sparrow”) + formis (“-shaped”)), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or songbirds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back), which facilitates perching. With more than 140 families and some 6,500 identified species, Passeriformes is the largest order of birds and among the most diverse orders of terrestrial vertebrates. Passerines are divided into three suborders: Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni (suboscines) and Passeri (oscines).
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The first passerines are now thought to have evolved in the Southern Hemisphere in the late Paleocene or early Eocene, around 50 million years ago. The initial split was between the New Zealand wrens (Acanthisittidae) and all other passerines, and the second split involved the Tyranni (suboscines) and the Passeri (oscines or songbirds). The latter experienced a great radiation of forms out of the Australian continent. A major branch of the Passeri, parvorder Passerida, expanded deep into Eurasia and Africa, where a further explosive radiation of new lineages occurred.
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New Zealand rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris), one of the two surviving species of suborder Acanthisitti This list is in taxonomic order, placing related families next to one another. The families listed are those recognised by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). The order and the division into infraorders, parvorders and superfamilies follows the phylogenetic analysis published by Carl Oliveros and colleagues in 2019. The relationships between the families in the suborder Tyranni (suboscines) were all well determined but some of the nodes in Passeri (oscines) were unclear owing to the rapid splitting of the lineages.
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This symbiosis has been studied extensively by biologists such as Daniel Janzen. Cecropia fruit, known as snake fingers, are a popular food of diverse animals, including bats like the common fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis) and short- tailed fruit bat, the Central American squirrel monkey (Saimiri oerstedii), and birds such as the green aracari (Pteroglossus viridis), the keel-billed toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus), the peach-fronted conure (Eupsittula aurea), the bare-throated bellbird (Procnias nudicollis)Frisch & Frisch (2005), pg.358 and particularly nine-primaried oscines. The seeds are not normally digested, so these animals are important in distributing the trees.
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The alternate name of "cinnamon bush lark" is also an alternate name for the flappet lark, and the alternate name of "singing bush lark" more commonly refers to the species of the same name, Mirafra cantillans. Other alternate names for Horsfield's bush lark include the Australasian bushlark, Australasian lark, Australian lark, eastern bush lark, eastern lark, eastern singing bush lark, Horsfield's lark and Javan lark. Morphologically, the family Alaudidae constitutes a well-defined group, whose members share unique features of the syrinx and tarsus. The syrinx lacks a pessulus, which is unique among oscines but occurs in many suboscine genera.
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Originally, these birds were placed in the thrushes, and they have also been placed with the Old World warblers and the babblers, but recent DNA studies indicate these birds are actually members of a basal group of oscines within the infraorder Passeri along with their sister-family the rockfowl (Picatharthidae), Oliveros et al. 2019 Some authorities (notably Dickinson and Christidis) treat the two rockjumpers as a single species, Chaetops frenatus, with two subspecies. Their latin names derive from descriptions of their appearance. "Frenatus" refers to the "bridled" or black-and-white head pattern, while "Aurantius" refers to the orange coloration.
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And while Basileuterus species are initiators as well as core species, mixed flocks of Tangara species – in particular red-necked, brassy- breasted, and green-headed tanagers – often initiate formation of a larger and more diverse feeding flock, of which they are then only a less significant component. Nine-primaried oscines make up much of almost every Neotropical mixed-species feeding flock. Namely, these birds are from families such as the cardinals, Parulidae (New World "warblers"), and in particular Emberizidae (American "sparrows") and Thraupidae (tanagers). Other members of a Neotropic mixed feeding flock may come from most of the local families of smaller diurnal insectivorous birds, and can also include woodpecker, toucans, and trogons.
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The nine-primaried oscines are a group of songbird families from the parvorder Passerida in the infraorder Passerides. It is composed of the Fringillidae (finches and Hawaiian honeycreepers), Emberizidae (Old World buntings), Passerellidae (American sparrows), Parulidae (New World warblers), Thraupidae (tanagers), Cardinalidae (cardinals), Icteridae (icterids) and the monotypic Peucedramidae (olive warbler). The name of this group arises from the fact that all species within it have only nine easily visible primary feathers on each wing (in reality most, if not all, also have a 10th primary, but it is greatly reduced and largely concealed). These families (with the possible exception of the Fringillidae) appear to form a clade; the status of the peculiar olive warbler and the distinct bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) need to be clarified.
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Two DNA studies, from 2015 and 2016, came to a different conclusion, finding that the Eurylaimides were divided into two clades and that the pittas formed a clade with the broadbills of the genera Smithornis and Calyptomena, with the remaining broadbills and asities in the other clade. The 2016 study also disputed the earlier claims about the origin of the group, and concluded that the most likely ancestral home of the pittas and the Eurylaimides was Africa (the sapayoa having diverged before the core clades had reached Africa). The study found that the pittas diverged from the Smithornis and Calyptomena broadbills 24 to 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene. The pittas diverged and spread through Asia before the oscines (suborder Passeri) reached the Old World from Australia.
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