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105-575: The great tit ( Parus major ) is a small passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe, the Middle East , Central Asia and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River , south to parts of North Africa where it is generally resident in any sort of woodland; most great tits do not migrate except in extremely harsh winters. Until 2005 this species

210-670: A carnivore is neither a dog nor a bear, they call it a cat. A later use can be found in the title of a 1969 paper "On lumpers and splitters ..." by the medical geneticist Victor McKusick . Reference to lumpers and splitters in the humanities appeared in a debate in 1975 between J. H. Hexter and Christopher Hill , in the Times Literary Supplement . It followed from Hexter's detailed review of Hill's book Change and Continuity in Seventeenth Century England , in which Hill developed Max Weber 's argument that

315-502: A tui -sized bird) and several bones of at least one species of saddleback -sized bird have recently been described. These date from the Early to Middle Miocene ( Awamoan to Lillburnian , 19–16 mya). In Europe, perching birds are not too uncommon in the fossil record from the Oligocene onward, belonging to several lineages: That suboscines expanded much beyond their region of origin

420-450: A black head and neck, prominent white cheeks, olive upperparts and yellow underparts, with some variation amongst the numerous subspecies. It is predominantly insectivorous in the summer, but will consume a wider range of food items in the winter months, including small hibernating bats. Like all tits it is a cavity nester, usually nesting in a hole in a tree. The female lays around 12 eggs and incubates them alone, although both parents raise

525-415: A bluish-black crown , black neck, throat, bib and head, and white cheeks and ear coverts. The breast is bright lemon-yellow and there is a broad black mid-line stripe running from the bib to vent. There is a dull white spot on the neck turning to greenish yellow on the upper nape . The rest of the nape and back are green tinged with olive. The wing-coverts are green, the rest of the wing is bluish-grey with

630-461: A clearer picture of passerine origins and evolution that reconciles molecular affinities, the constraints of morphology, and the specifics of the fossil record. 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 diversification of passerines coincides with the separation of

735-417: A common ancestor or protolanguage ) as the only valid proof of kinship, and consider genetic relatedness to be the question of interest. American linguists of recent decades tend to be splitters. Lumpers are more willing to admit techniques like mass lexical comparison or lexicostatistics , and mass typological comparison, and to tolerate the uncertainty of whether relationships found by these methods are

840-434: A considerable amount of intelligence and the ability to solve problems with insight learning, that is to solve a problem through insight rather than trial and error. In England, great tits learned to break the foil caps of milk bottles delivered at the doorstep of homes to obtain the cream at the top. This behaviour, first noted in 1921, spread rapidly in the next two decades. In 2009, great tits were reported killing, and eating

945-425: A day. Both parents provision the chicks with food and aid in nest sanitation by removing faecal packets, with no difference in the feeding effort between the sexes. The nestling period is between 16 and 22 days, with chicks being independent of the parents eight days after fledging . Feeding of the fledgeling may continue after independence, lasting up to 25 days in chicks from the first brood, but as long as 50 days in

1050-471: A distinct super-family Certhioidea . 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

1155-469: A dozen and other species around five or six. The family Viduidae do not build their own nests, instead, they lay eggs in other birds' nests. The Passeriformes contain several groups of brood parasites such as the viduas , cuckoo-finches , and the cowbirds . The evolutionary history of the passerine families and the relationships among them remained rather mysterious until the late 20th century. In many cases, passerine families were grouped together on

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1260-405: A hole that is usually inside a tree, although occasionally in a wall or rock face, and they will readily take to nest boxes . The nest inside the cavity is built by the female, and is made of plant fibres, grasses, moss, hair, wool and feathers. The number in the clutch is often very large, as many as 18, but five to twelve is more common. Clutch size is smaller when birds start laying later, and

1365-442: A larger bill, greyer-blue upperparts and slightly paler underparts. P. m. ecki is like P. m. mallorcae except with bluer upperparts and paler underparts. P. m. excelsus is similar to the nominate race but has much brighter green upperparts, bright yellow underparts and no (or very little) white on the tail. P. m. aphrodite has darker, more olive-grey upperparts, and the underparts are more yellow to pale cream. P. m. niethammeri

1470-501: A model for the study of the evolution of various life-history traits, particularly clutch size. A study of a literature database search found 1,349 articles relating to Parus major for the period between 1969 and 2002. The great tit has generally adjusted to human modifications of the environment. It is more common and has better breeding success in areas with undisturbed forest cover, but it has adapted well to human-modified habitats, and can be very common in urban areas . For example,

1575-422: A more and more unwieldy definition, with members having less and less mutually in common. This can lead to definitions which are little more than conventionalities, or groups which join fundamentally different examples. Splitting often leads to " distinctions without difference ", ornate and fussy categories, and failure to see underlying similarities. For example, in the arts, " Romantic " can refer specifically to

1680-442: A period of German poetry roughly from 1780 to 1810, but would exclude the later work of Goethe , among other writers. In music it can mean every composer from Hummel through Rachmaninoff , plus many that came after. Software engineering often proceeds by building models (sometimes known as model-driven architecture ). A lumper is keen to generalize, and produces models with a small number of broadly defined objects. A splitter

1785-513: A range of 274 to 312 genera for ferns alone. By contrast, the system of Christenhusz & Chase (2014) used 5 lycophyte and about 212 fern genera. The number of fern genera was further reduced to 207 in a subsequent publication. Defending PPG I, Schuettpelz et al. (2018) argue that the larger number of genera is a result of "the gradual accumulation of new collections and new data" and hence "a greater appreciation of fern diversity and [..] an improved ability to distinguish taxa". They also argue that

1890-528: A religion such as Shaivism , Vaishnavism , or Shaktism , according to which deity they believe to be the supreme creator of the universe. Various "holistic" approaches to religion can prioritise themes such as individual spirituality, the New-Age -style essential oneness of multiple religious traditions, or religious fundamentalism . Physicist and philosophy writer Freeman Dyson has suggested that one can broadly, if over-simplistically, divide "observers of

1995-438: A single, morphologically uniform subspecies over such a large area suggests that the nominate race rapidly recolonised a large area after the last glacial epoch . This hypothesis is supported by genetic studies which suggest a geologically recent genetic bottleneck followed by a rapid population expansion. The genus Parus once held most of the species of tit in the family Paridae , but morphological and genetic studies led to

2100-444: A white wing-bar. The tail is bluish grey with white outer tips. The plumage of the female is similar to that of the male except that the colours are overall duller; the bib is less intensely black, as is the line running down the belly, which is also narrower and sometimes broken. Young birds are like the female, except that they have dull olive-brown napes and necks, greyish rumps, and greyer tails, with less defined white tips. There

2205-442: Is also lower when the density of competitors is higher. Second broods tend to have smaller clutches. Insularity also affects clutch size, with great tits on offshore islands laying smaller clutches with larger eggs than mainland birds. The eggs are white with red spots. The female undertakes all incubation duties, and is fed by the male during incubation. The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed. The timing of hatching, which

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2310-460: Is any bird of the order Passeriformes ( / ˈ p æ s ə r ɪ f ɔːr m iː z / ; from Latin passer 'sparrow' and formis '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds , passerines generally have an anisodactyl 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

2415-703: Is avoided by dispersal of individuals from their birthplace, which reduces the chance of mating with a close relative. The Eurasian sparrowhawk is a predator of great tits, with the young from second broods being at higher risk partly because of the hawk's greater need for food for its own developing young. The nests of great tits are raided by great spotted woodpeckers , particularly when nesting in certain types of nest boxes. Other nest predators include introduced grey squirrels (in Britain) and least weasels , which are able to take nesting adults as well. A species of biting louse ( Mallophaga ) described as Rostrinirmus hudeci

2520-517: Is best synchronised with peak availability of prey, can be manipulated when environmental conditions change after the laying of the first egg by delaying the beginning of incubation, laying more eggs or pausing during incubation. The incubation period is between 12 and 15 days. The chicks, like those of all tits , hatch unfeathered and blind. Once feathers begin to erupt, the nestlings are unusual for altricial birds in having plumage coloured with carotenoids similar to their parents (in most species it

2625-482: Is currently divided into three suborders: Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni , (suboscines) and Passeri (oscines or songbirds). The Passeri is now subdivided into two major groups recognized now as Corvides 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

2730-453: Is dun-coloured to avoid predation). The nape is yellow and attracts the attention of the parents by its ultraviolet reflectance. This may be to make them easier to find in low light, or be a signal of fitness to win the parents' attention. This patch turns white after the first moult at age two months, and diminishes in size as the bird grows. Chicks are fed by both parents, usually receiving 6 to 7 g (0.21–0.25 oz) of food

2835-529: Is estimated at between 300 and 1,100 million birds in a range of 32.4 million km (12.5 million sq mi). While there have been some localised declines in population in areas with poorer quality habitats, its large range and high numbers mean that the great tit is not considered to be threatened, and it is classed as least concern on the IUCN Red List . Passerine and see text A passerine ( / ˈ p æ s ə r aɪ n / )

2940-404: Is like P. m. bokharensis but with a smaller bill, darker grey on the flanks and a more yellow wash on the juvenile birds. The colour of the male bird's breast has been shown to correlate with stronger sperm, and is one way that the male demonstrates his reproductive superiority to females. Higher levels of carotenoid increase the intensity of the yellow of the breast its colour, and also enable

3045-499: Is more densely occupied than it actually is. Whether the theory is correct or not, those birds with large vocabularies are socially dominant and breed more successfully. The great tit has a wide distribution across much of Eurasia. It can be found across all of Europe except for Iceland and northern Scandinavia , including numerous Mediterranean islands. In North Africa it lives in Morocco , Algeria and Tunisia . It also occurs across

3150-887: Is more scant before the Pleistocene, from which several still-existing families are documented. Apart from the indeterminable MACN -SC-1411 (Pinturas Early/Middle Miocene of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina), an extinct lineage of perching birds has been described from the Late Miocene of California, United States: the Palaeoscinidae with the single genus Palaeoscinis . "Palaeostruthus" eurius (Pliocene of Florida) probably belongs to an extant family, most likely passeroidean . Acanthisitti – New Zealand wrens (1 family containing 7 species, only 2 extant) Tyranni – suboscines (16 families containing 1,356 species) Passeri – oscines (125 families containing 5,158 species) The Passeriformes

3255-469: Is not a single coherent path in the development of liturgical texts. Liturgical texts must not be taken solely at face value; often there are hidden agendas in texts. The idea of a single Hindu religion is essentially a lumper's concept, sometimes also known as Smartism (on the basis of the Smārta synthesis). Hindu splitters, and individual adherents, often identify themselves on the other hand as adherents of

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3360-523: Is proven by several fossils from Germany such as a presumed broadbill ( Eurylaimidae ) humerus fragment from the Early Miocene (roughly 20 mya) of Wintershof , Germany, the Late Oligocene carpometacarpus from France listed above, and Wieslochia , among others. Extant Passeri super-families were quite distinct by that time and are known since about 12–13 mya when modern genera were present in

3465-434: Is reluctant to generalize, and produces models with a large number of narrowly defined objects. Conversion between the two styles is not necessarily symmetrical. For example, if error messages in two narrowly defined classes behave in the same way, the classes can be easily combined. But if some messages in a broad class behave differently, every object in the class must be examined before the class can be split. This illustrates

3570-404: Is selected for by females, with higher quality females apparently selecting males with wider stripes. The great tit is, like other tits, a vocal bird , and has up to 40 types of calls and songs. The calls are generally the same between the sexes, but the male is much more vocal and the female rarely calls. Soft single notes such as "pit", "spick", or "chit" are used as contact calls. A loud "tink"

3675-415: Is similar to P. m. aphrodite but the upperparts are duller and less green, and the underparts are pale yellow. P. m. terrasanctae resembles the previous two subspecies but has slightly paler upperparts. P. m. blandfordi is like the nominate but with a greyer mantle and scapulars and pale yellow underparts, and P. m. karelini is intermediate between the nominate and P. m. blandfordi , and lacks white on

3780-428: Is some variation in the subspecies. P. m. newtoni is like the nominate race but has a slightly longer bill, the mantle is slightly deeper green, there is less white on the tail tips, and the ventral mid-line stripe is broader on the belly. P. m. corsus also resembles the nominate form but has duller upperparts, less white in the tail and less yellow in the nape. P. m. mallorcae is like the nominate subspecies, but has

3885-589: Is technically called synonymization. Dividing a taxon into multiple, often new, taxa is called splitting. Taxonomists are often referred to as "lumpers" or "splitters" by their colleagues, depending on their personal approach to recognizing differences or commonalities between organisms. For example, the number of genera used in Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group (PPG) I has proved controversial. PPG I uses 18 lycophyte and 319 fern genera. The earlier system put forward by Smith et al. (2006) had suggested

3990-442: Is the long-tailed widowbird . The chicks of passerines are altricial : blind, featherless, and helpless when hatched from their eggs. Hence, the chicks require extensive parental care. Most passerines lay colored eggs, in contrast with nonpasserines, most of whose eggs are white except in some ground-nesting groups such as Charadriiformes and nightjars , where camouflage is necessary, and in some parasitic cuckoos , which match

4095-459: Is the short-tailed pygmy tyrant , at 6.5 cm (2.6 in) and 4.2 g (0.15 oz). The foot of a passerine has three toes directed forward and one toe directed backward, called anisodactyl arrangement. The hind toe ( hallux ) is long and joins the leg at approximately the same level as the front toes. This arrangement enables passerine birds to easily perch upright on branches. The toes have no webbing or joining, but in some cotingas ,

4200-545: Is the largest order of birds and among the most diverse clades of terrestrial vertebrates , representing 60% of birds. Passerines are divided into three suborders : Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni (composed mostly of South American suboscines), and Passeri (oscines or songbirds). Passerines originated in the Southern Hemisphere around 60 million years ago. Most passerines are insectivorous or omnivorous , and eat both insects and fruit or seeds. The terms "passerine" and "Passeriformes" are derived from

4305-437: Is used by adult males as an alarm or in territorial disputes. One of the most familiar is a "teacher, teacher", often likened to a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel, which is used in proclaiming ownership of a territory. In former times, English folk considered the "saw-sharpening" call to be a foretelling of rain. Tit calls from different geographic regions show some variation, and tits from the two south Asian groups recently split from

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4410-652: The Corvida and numerous minor lineages make up songbird diversity today. Extensive biogeographical mixing happens, with northern forms returning to the south, southern forms moving north, and so on. Perching bird osteology , especially of the limb bones, is rather diagnostic. However, the early fossil record is poor because passerines are relatively small, and their delicate bones do not preserve well. Queensland Museum specimens F20688 ( carpometacarpus ) and F24685 ( tibiotarsus ) from Murgon, Queensland , are fossil bone fragments initially assigned to Passeriformes . However,

4515-687: The Middle East , and parts of Central Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan to Mongolia , as well as across northern Asia from the Urals as far east as northern China and the Amur Valley . The great tit occupies a range of habitats. It is most commonly found in open deciduous woodland , mixed forests , forest edges and gardens. In dense forests, including conifer forests it prefers forest clearings. In northern Siberia it lives in boreal taiga . In North Africa it rather resides in oak forests as well as stands of Atlas cedar and even palm groves. In

4620-621: The Old World warblers and Old World babblers have turned out to be paraphyletic and are being rearranged. Several taxa turned out to represent highly distinct lineages, so new families had to be established, some of theirs – like the stitchbird of New Zealand and the Eurasian bearded reedling – monotypic with only one living species. In the Passeri alone, a number of minor lineages will eventually be recognized as distinct superfamilies. For example,

4725-402: The bokharensis and major groups was estimated to have been about half a million years ago. The study also examined hybrids between representatives of the major and minor groups in the Amur Valley where the two meet. Hybrids were rare, suggesting that there were some reproductive barriers between the two groups. The study recommended that the two eastern groups be split out as new species,

4830-538: The breeding season , the tits prefer to feed protein-rich caterpillars to their young. A study published in 2007 found that great tits helped to reduce caterpillar damage in apple orchards by as much as 50%. Nestlings also undergo a period in their early development where they are fed a number of spiders, possibly for nutritional reasons. In autumn and winter, when insect prey becomes scarcer, great tits add berries and seeds to their diet. Seeds and fruit usually come from deciduous trees and shrubs, like for instance

4935-728: The cinereous tit ( Parus cinereus ), and the Japanese tit ( Parus minor ), but that the Turkestan tit be lumped in with the great tit. This taxonomy has been followed by some authorities, for example the IOC World Bird List . The Handbook of the Birds of the World volume treating the Parus species went for the more traditional classification, treating the Turkestan tit as a separate species but retaining

5040-631: The crows , do not sound musical to human beings. Some, such as the lyrebird , are accomplished mimics. The New Zealand wrens are tiny birds restricted to New Zealand , at least in modern times; they were long placed in Passeri. Most passerines are smaller than typical members of other avian orders. The heaviest and altogether largest passerines are the thick-billed raven and the larger races of common raven , each exceeding 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) and 70 cm (28 in). The superb lyrebird and some birds-of-paradise , due to very long tails or tail coverts, are longer overall. The smallest passerine

5145-512: The electron transport from ATP production. As a result, the energy that would have been used to make ATP is released as heat and their blood becomes more thermogenic. In the face of winter food shortages, the great tit has also shown a type of peripheral vasoconstriction (constriction of blood vessels) to reduce heat loss and cold injury. Reduced cold injury and heat loss is mediated by the great tits' counter-current vascular arrangements, and peripheral vasoconstriction in major vessels in and around

5250-445: The kinglets constitute a single genus with less than 10 species today but seem to have been among the first perching bird lineages to diverge as the group spread across Eurasia. No particularly close relatives of theirs have been found among comprehensive studies of the living Passeri, though they might be fairly close to some little-studied tropical Asian groups. Nuthatches , wrens , and their closest relatives are currently grouped in

5355-494: The minor group's nine subspecies occurred from southeast Russia and Japan into northern southeast Asia and the 11 subspecies in the cinereus group were found from Iran across south Asia to Indonesia . The three bokharensis subspecies were often treated as a separate species, Parus bokharensis , the Turkestan tit. This form was once thought to form a ring species around the Tibetan Plateau , with gene flow throughout

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5460-503: The scientific name of the house sparrow , Passer domesticus , and ultimately from the Latin term passer , which refers to sparrows and similar small birds. The order is divided into three suborders, Tyranni (suboscines), Passeri (oscines or songbirds), 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

5565-402: The superb lyrebird has 16, and several spinetails in the family Furnariidae have 10, 8, or even 6, as is the case of Des Murs's wiretail . Species adapted to tree trunk climbing such as treecreepers and woodcreeper have stiff tail feathers that are used as props during climbing. Extremely long tails used as sexual ornaments are shown by species in different families. A well-known example

5670-455: The white-naped and green-backed tits of southern Asia. Hybrids with tits outside the genus Parus are very rare, but have been recorded with blue tit , coal tit , and probably marsh tit . There are currently 15 recognised subspecies of great tit: The great tit is large for a tit at 12.5 to 14.0 cm (4.9–5.5 in) in length, and has a distinctive appearance that makes it easy to recognise. The nominate race P. major major has

5775-448: The 'splitting' process'. 'Lumpers', on the other hand, point to the similarities between the diagnostic categories, and suggest that these similarities justify the creation of broader entities. Thus lumpers might see "stress" where splitters could identify (say) worry , grief , or some sort of anxiety disorder . In neuroscience, "uncertainty aversion" and "uncertainty tolerance" in semantic representations appear to correlate with

5880-498: The Americas , accompanied by controversy similar to that today. Paul F. Bradshaw suggests that the same principles of lumping and splitting apply to the study of early Christian liturgy . Lumpers, who tend to predominate in this field, try to find a single line of successive texts from the apostolic age to the fourth century (and later). Splitters see many parallel and overlapping strands which intermingle and flow apart so that there

5985-431: The Americas . At a completely different level, the splitting of a mutually intelligible dialect continuum into different languages, or lumping them into one, is also an issue that continually comes up, though the consensus in contemporary linguistics is that there is no completely objective way to settle the question. Splitters regard the comparative method (meaning not comparison in general, but only reconstruction of

6090-706: The Japanese and cinereous tits with the great tit, a move that has not been without criticism. The nominate subspecies of the great tit is the most widespread, its range stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the Amur Valley and from Scandinavia to the Middle East. The other subspecies have much more restricted distributions, four being restricted to islands and the remainder of the P. m. major subspecies representing former glacial refuge populations . The dominance of

6195-764: The United States; birds were set free near Cincinnati, Ohio between 1872 and 1874 but failed to become established. Suggestions that they were an excellent control measure for codling moths nearly led to their introduction to some new areas particularly in the United States of America, however this plan was not implemented. A small population is present in the upper Midwest, believed to be the descendants of birds liberated in Chicago in 2002 along with European goldfinches , Eurasian jays , common chaffinches , European greenfinches , saffron finches , blue tits and Eurasian linnets , although sightings of some of these species pre-date

6300-427: The amount of heat transferred from core body tissues to the skin (via cutaneous vasodilation), which, in turn, reduces heat loss rate by lowering skin temperature relative to the environment. The great tit is a popular garden bird due to its acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or seed. Its willingness to move into nest boxes has made it a valuable study subject in ornithology ; it has been particularly useful as

6405-545: The basis of morphological similarities that, it is now believed, are the result of convergent evolution , not a close genetic relationship. For example, the wrens of the Americas and Eurasia , those of Australia , and those of New Zealand look superficially similar and behave in similar ways, yet belong to three far-flung branches of the passerine family tree; they are as unrelated as it is possible to be while remaining Passeriformes. Advances in molecular biology and improved paleobiogeographical data gradually are revealing

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6510-409: The birds' bill and legs. This mechanism allows uninsulated regions (i.e., bill and legs) to remain close to the surrounding temperature. In response to food restriction, the great tits' bill temperature dropped, and once food availably was increased, bill temperatures gradually returned to normal. Vasoconstriction of blood vessels in the bill not only serves as an energy saving mechanism, but also reduces

6615-574: The brains of roosting pipistrelle bats. This is the first time a songbird has been recorded preying on bats. The tits only do this during winter when the bats are hibernating and other food is scarce. They have also been recorded using tools , using a conifer needle in the bill to extract larvae from a hole in a tree. Great tits are monogamous breeders and establish breeding territories . These territories are established in late January and defence begins in late winter or early spring. Territories are usually reoccupied in successive years, even if one of

6720-497: The breeding male and that 8.5% of all chicks were the result of cuckoldry . Adult males tend to have a higher reproductive success compared to sub-adults. Great tits are seasonal breeders. The exact timing of breeding varies by a number of factors, most importantly location. Most breeding occurs between January and September; in Europe the breeding season usually begins after March. In Israel there are exceptional records of breeding during

6825-487: The breeding population in the city of Sheffield (a city of half a million people) has been estimated at some 17,000 individuals. In adapting to human environments its song has been observed to change in noise-polluted urban environments. In areas with low frequency background noise pollution, the song has a higher frequency than in quieter areas. This tit has expanded its range, moving northwards into Scandinavia and Scotland, and south into Israel and Egypt. The total population

6930-408: The chicks. In most years the pair will raise two broods. The nests may be raided by woodpeckers , squirrels and weasels and infested with fleas , and adults may be hunted by sparrowhawks . The great tit has adapted well to human changes in the environment and is a common and familiar bird in urban parks and gardens. The great tit is also an important study species in ornithology . The great tit

7035-502: The corvoidean and basal songbirds. The modern diversity of Passerida genera is known mostly from the Late Miocene onward and into the Pliocene (about 10–2 mya). Pleistocene and early Holocene lagerstätten (<1.8 mya) yield numerous extant species, and many yield almost nothing but extant species or their chronospecies and paleosubspecies. In the Americas , the fossil record

7140-529: The east of its range in Siberia, Mongolia and China it favours riverine willow and birch forest. Riverine woodlands of willows, poplars are among the habitats of the Turkestan subspecies, as well as low scrubland , oases ; at higher altitudes it occupies habitats ranging from dense deciduous and coniferous forests to open areas with scattered trees. The great tit is generally not migratory . Pairs will usually remain near or in their territory year round, even in

7245-410: The elevated temperatures produced by brooding birds, tits being the preferred hosts. Great tits compete with the pied flycatcher for nesting boxes, and can kill prospecting flycatcher males. Incidences of fatal competition are more frequent when nesting times overlap, and climate change has led to greater synchrony of nesting between the two species and flycatcher deaths. Having killed the flycatchers,

7350-608: The excessive splitting of genera destabilises the usage of names and will lead to greater instability in future, and that the highly split genera have few if any characters that can be used to recognize them, making identification difficult, even to generic level. They further argue that comparing numbers of species per genus in different groups is "fundamentally meaningless". In history, lumpers are those who tend to create broad definitions that cover large periods of time and many disciplines, whereas splitters want to assign names to tight groups of inter-relationships. Lumping tends to create

7455-404: The families in the suborder Tyranni (suboscines) were all well determined but some of the nodes in Passeri (oscines or songbirds) were unclear owing to the rapid splitting of the lineages. Infraorder Eurylaimides : Old World suboscines Infraorder Tyrannides : New World suboscines Parvorder Furnariida Parvorder Tyrannida Relationships between living Passeriformes families based on

7560-463: The great tit do not recognise or react to the calls of the temperate great tits. One explanation for the great tit's wide repertoire is the Beau Geste hypothesis . The eponymous hero of the novel propped dead soldiers against the battlements to give the impression that his fort was better defended than was really the case. Similarly, the multiplicity of calls gives the impression that the tit's territory

7665-403: The great tits may consume their brains. Great tits have been found to possess special physiological adaptations for cold environments. When preparing for winter months, the great tit can increase how thermogenic (heat producing) its blood is. The mechanism for this adaptation is a seasonal increase in mitochondrial volume and mitochondrial respiration in red blood cells and increased uncoupling of

7770-465: The hypothesis may be confirmed or refuted. Sometimes, especially in the past when communication was more difficult, taxonomists working in isolation have given two distinct names to individual organisms later identified as the same species. When two named species are agreed to be of the same species, the older species name is almost always retained dropping the newer species name honoring a convention known as "priority of nomenclature". This form of lumping

7875-430: The item is held with one or both feet and then struck with the bill until it is ready to eat. Using this method, a great tit can get into a hazelnut in about twenty minutes. When feeding young, adults will hammer off the heads of large insects to make them easier to consume, and remove the gut from caterpillars so that the tannins in the gut will not retard the chick's growth. Great tits combine dietary versatility with

7980-649: The material is too fragmentary and their affinities have been questioned. Several more recent fossils from the Oligocene of Europe, such as Wieslochia , Jamna , Resoviaornis , and Crosnoornis , are more complete and definitely represent early passeriforms, and have been found to belong to a variety of modern and extinct lineages. From the Bathans Formation at the Manuherikia River in Otago , New Zealand, MNZ S42815 (a distal right tarsometatarsus of

8085-524: The mid-2000s, 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. Major " wastebin " families such as

8190-402: The months of October to December. The amount of sunlight and daytime temperatures will also affect breeding timing. One study found a strong correlation between the timing of laying and the peak abundance of caterpillar prey, which is in turn correlated to temperature. On an individual level, younger females tend to start laying later than older females. Great tits are cavity nesters, breeding in

8295-451: The northern parts of their range. Young birds will disperse from their parents' territory, but usually not far. Populations may become irruptive in poor or harsh winters, meaning that groups of up to a thousand birds may unpredictably move from northern Europe to the Baltic and also to Netherlands, Britain, even as far as the southern Balkans . The great tit was unsuccessfully introduced into

8400-446: The number of species per genus in the PPG I system is already higher than in other groups of organisms (about 33 species per genus for ferns as opposed to about 22 species per genus for angiosperms ) and that reducing the number of genera as Christenhusz and Chase propose yields the excessive number of about 50 species per genus for ferns. In response, Christenhusz & Chase (2018) argue that

8505-531: The pair dies, so long as the brood is raised successfully. Females are likely to disperse to new territories if their nest is predated the previous year. If the pair divorces for some reason then the birds will disperse, with females travelling further than males to establish new territories. Although the great tit is socially monogamous, extra-pair copulations are frequent. One study in Germany found that 40% of nests contained some offspring fathered by parents other than

8610-509: The passerine host's egg. The vinous-throated parrotbill has two egg colors, white and blue, to deter the brood parasitic common cuckoo . Clutches vary considerably in size: some larger passerines of Australia such as lyrebirds and scrub-robins lay only a single egg, most smaller passerines in warmer climates lay between two and five, while in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, hole-nesting species like tits can lay up to

8715-462: The philosophical scene" into splitters and lumpers – roughly corresponding to materialists (who imagine the world as divided into atoms) and Platonists (who regard the world as made up of ideas). In psychiatry , the 'splitters' and the 'lumpers' have fundamentally different approaches to psychiatric diagnosis and classification. First, 'splitters' emphasise the heterogeneity within the diagnostic categories and argue that this heterogeneity drives

8820-925: The phylogenetic analysis of Oliveros et al (2019). Some terminals have been renamed to reflect families recognised by the IOC but not in that study. The IOC families Alcippeidae and Teretistridae were not sampled in this study. Acanthisittidae (New Zealand wrens) Eurylaimidae (eurylaimid broadbills) Philepittidae (asites) Calyptomenidae (African and green broadbills) Pittidae (pittas) Sapayoidae (sapayoa) Melanopareiidae (crescent chests) Conopophagidae (gnateaters) Thamnophilidae (antbirds) Grallariidae (antpittas) Rhinocryptidae (tapaculos) Formicariidae (antthrushes) Scleruridae (leaftossers) Dendrocolaptidae (woodcreepers) Furnariidae (ovenbirds) Pipridae (manakins) Cotingidae (cotingas) Tityridae (tityras, becards) Lumpers and splitters The earliest known use of these terms

8925-416: The previously encountered subset of mugs to a future subset of mugs. However, this also posits a dilemma: Is a glass mug still a mug? That is, what are the defining principles that make something a "mug"? Establishing this is fundamental since it also affects its relationship with its close-neighbors. Conceptualizing a mug as very different from a glass creates a more clear-cut mapping between the input—that is,

9030-422: The principle that "splits can be lumped more easily than lumps can be split". There is no agreement among historical linguists about what amount of evidence is needed for two languages to be safely classified in the same language family . For this reason, many proposed language families have had lumper–splitter controversies, including Altaic , Pama–Nyungan , Nilo-Saharan , and most of the larger families of

9135-560: The respective names of 'hair-splitting' and 'lumping' are unquestionably yielding their power to the mightier power of Truth." They were then introduced more widely by George G. Simpson in his 1945 work The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals . As he put it: ... splitters make very small units – their critics say that if they can tell two animals apart, they place them in different genera ... and if they cannot tell them apart, they place them in different species. ... Lumpers make large units – their critics say that if

9240-596: The result of linguistic divergence (descent from common ancestor) or language convergence (borrowing). Much long-range comparison work has been from Russian linguists belonging to the Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics , most notably Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Sergei Starostin . In the United States, Greenberg and Ruhlen 's work has been met with little acceptance from linguists. Earlier American linguists like Morris Swadesh and Edward Sapir also pursued large-scale classifications like Sapir's 1929 scheme for

9345-450: The rise of capitalism was facilitated by Calvinist Puritanism. Hexter objected to Hill's "mining" of sources to find evidence that supported his theories. Hexter argued that Hill plucked quotations from sources in a way that distorted their meaning. Hexter explained this as a mental habit that he called "lumping". According to him, "lumpers" rejected differences and chose to emphasize similarities. Any evidence that did not fit their arguments

9450-509: The second and third toes are united at their basal third. The leg of passerine birds contains an additional special adaptation for perching. A tendon in the rear of the leg running from the underside of the toes to the muscle behind the tibiotarsus will automatically be pulled and tighten when the leg bends, causing the foot to curl and become stiff when the bird lands on a branch. This enables passerines to sleep while perching without falling off. Most passerine birds have 12 tail feathers but

9555-495: The second brood. Nestlings from second broods have weaker immune systems and body condition than those from first broods, and hence have a lower juvenile survival rate. Inbreeding depression occurs when the offspring produced as a result of a mating between close relatives show reduced fitness. The reduced fitness is generally considered to be a consequence of the increased expression of deleterious recessive alleles in these offspring. In natural populations of P. major , inbreeding

9660-493: The seeds of beech and hazel . Where it is available they will readily take table scraps, peanuts and seeds from bird tables . In particularly severe winters they may consume 44% of their body weight in sunflower seeds. They often forage on the ground, particularly in years with high beech mast production. Great tits, along with other tits, will join winter mixed-species foraging flocks . Large food items, such as large seeds or prey, are dealt with by "hold-hammering", where

9765-911: The southern continents in the early Eocene . The New Zealand wrens are the first to become isolated in Zealandia , and the second split involved the origin of the Tyranni in South America and the Passeri in the Australian continent . The Passeri experienced a great radiation of forms in Australia. A major branch of the Passeri, the parvorder Passerida , dispersed into Eurasia and Africa about 40 million years ago, where they experienced further radiation of new lineages. This eventually led to three major Passerida lineages comprising about 4,000 species, which in addition to

9870-412: The sperm to better withstand the onslaught of free radicals . Carotenoids cannot be synthesized by the bird and have to be obtained from food, so a bright colour in a male demonstrates his ability to obtain good nutrition. However, the saturation of the yellow colour is also influenced by environmental factors, such as weather conditions. The width of the male's ventral stripe, which varies with individual,

9975-422: The splitting of that large genus in 1998. The great tit was retained in Parus , which along with Cyanistes comprises a lineage of tits known as the "non-hoarders", with reference to the hoarding behaviour of members of the other clade. The genus Parus is still the largest in the family, but may be split again. Other than those species formerly considered to be subspecies, the great tit's closest relatives are

10080-476: The stimulus perceived—and the output that a person needs to generate—that is, the response, such as drinking coffee. Classical work in cognitive science demonstrates that the more similar two stimuli are, the harder it is to discriminate them and respond with different behavior." Natural language processing , using algorithmic approaches such as Word2Vec, provides a way to quantify the overlap or distinguish between semantic categories between words. This can provide

10185-533: The subspecies, but this theory was abandoned when sequences of mitochondrial DNA were examined, finding that the four groups were distinct ( monophyletic ) and that the hybridisation zones between the groups were the result of secondary contact after a temporary period of isolation. A study published in 2005 confirmed that the major group was distinct from the cinereus and minor groups and that along with P. m. bokharensis it diverged from these two groups around 1.5 million years ago. The divergence between

10290-624: The supposed introduction date. Birds were introduced to the Almaty Province in what is now Kazakhstan in 1960–61 and became established, although their present status is unclear. Great tits are primarily insectivorous in the summer, feeding on insects and spiders which they capture by foliage gleaning . Their larger invertebrate prey include cockroaches , grasshoppers and crickets , lacewings , earwigs , bugs ( Hemiptera ), ants, flies (Diptera), caddisflies, beetles, scorpionflies, harvestmen, bees and wasps, snails and woodlice. During

10395-438: The tail. The plumage of P. m. bokharensis is much greyer, pale creamy white to washed out grey underparts, a larger white cheep patch, a grey tail, wings, back and nape. It is also slightly smaller, with a smaller bill but longer tail. The situation is similar for the two related subspecies in the Turkestan tit group. P. m. turkestanicus is like P. m. bokharensis but with a larger bill and darker upperparts. P. m. ferghanensis

10500-404: The terms "splitters" and "lumpers" respectively. As neuroscientist Marc-Lluís Vives observes: "Our survival is possible because every day we make use of previously acquired categories to navigate the world. Every single mug we encounter is distinct, but fundamentally the same. Thanks to this powerful capacity to classify distinct stimuli under the same category, we can generalize our knowledge from

10605-518: Was described under its current binomial name by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae . Its scientific name is derived from the Latin parus "tit" and maior "larger". Francis Willughby had used the name in the 17th century. The great tit was formerly treated as ranging from Britain to Japan and south to the islands of Indonesia, with 36 described subspecies ascribed to four main species groups. The major group had 13 subspecies across Europe, temperate Asia and north Africa,

10710-410: Was lumped with numerous other subspecies. DNA studies have shown these other subspecies to be distinct from the great tit and these have now been separated as two distinct species, the cinereous tit ( Parus cinereus ) of southern Asia, and the Japanese tit ( Parus minor ) of East Asia. The great tit remains the most widespread species in the genus Parus . The great tit is a distinctive bird with

10815-434: Was ignored as aberrant. Splitters, by contrast, emphasised differences, and resisted simple schemes. While lumpers consistently tried to create coherent patterns, splitters preferred incoherent complexity. The categorization and naming of a particular species should be regarded as a hypothesis about the evolutionary relationships and distinguishability of that group of organisms. As further information comes to hand,

10920-536: Was isolated and described in 1981 from great tits in central Europe. The hen flea Ceratophyllus gallinae is exceedingly common in the nests of blue and great tits. It was originally a specialist tit flea, but the dry, crowded conditions of chicken runs enabled it to flourish with its new host. This flea is preferentially predated by the clown beetle Gnathoncus punctulatus , The rove beetle Microglotta pulla also feeds on fleas and their larvae. Although these beetles often remain in deserted nests, they can only breed in

11025-472: Was thought to be Charles Darwin , in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1857: It is good to have hair-splitters & lumpers . But according to research done by the deputy director at NCSE , Glenn Branch , the credit is due to naturalist Edward Newman who wrote in 1845, "The time has arrived for discarding imaginary species, and the duty of doing this is as imperative as the admission of new ones when such are really discovered. The talents described under

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