16-503: See article text The Old World babblers or Timaliidae , are a 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 greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent . The timaliids are one of two unrelated groups of birds known as babblers,
32-527: A thrush or warbler , except for the scimitar babblers which, as their name implies, have strongly decurved bills. Most have predominantly brown plumage, with minimal difference between the sexes, but many more brightly coloured species also exist. This group is not strongly migratory , and most species have short rounded wings, and a weak flight. They live in lightly wooded or scrubland environments, ranging from swamp to near-desert. They are primarily insectivorous , although many will also take berries, and
48-554: A lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community for extended periods. The continual publication of new data and diverse opinions plays a crucial role in facilitating adjustments and ultimately reaching a consensus over time. The naming of families is codified by various international bodies using the following suffixes: The taxonomic term familia was first used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in his Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he called
64-453: Is considered an Old World babbler). The most obviously misplaced taxa were removed piecemeal towards the end of the last century. Since then, with the aid of DNA sequence data, it has been confirmed that even the remaining group is not monophyletic . Analysis of mtDNA cytochrome b and 12S / 16S rRNA data (Cibois 2003a) spread the Timaliidae that were studied across what essentially
80-468: The Genera Plantarum of George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker this word ordo was used for what now is given the rank of family. Families serve as valuable units for evolutionary, paleontological, and genetic studies due to their relatively greater stability compared to lower taxonomic levels like genera and species. Timalia The chestnut-capped babbler ( Timalia pileata )
96-464: The 20th century, the family was used as a " wastebin taxon " for numerous hard-to-place Old World songbirds (such as Picathartidae and Pnoepygidae , as well as the New World species the wrentit ). The German ornithologist Ernst Hartert summarized this attitude with the statement that, in the passerines: " Was man nicht unterbringen kann, sieht man als Timalien an. " (What one can't place systematically
112-542: The family Juglandaceae , but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family— or whether a described family should be acknowledged— is established and decided upon by active taxonomists . There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to
128-530: The family as a rank intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796). He used families (some of them were not named) in some but not in all his orders of "insects" (which then included all arthropods ). In nineteenth-century works such as the Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and
144-550: The following ten genera: Family (biology) Family ( Latin : familia , pl. : familiae ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy . It is classified between order and genus . A family may be divided into subfamilies , which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to
160-539: The larger species will even eat small lizards and other vertebrates. Typical babblers live in communities of around a dozen birds, jointly defending a territory. Many even breed communally, with a dominant pair building a nest, and the remainder helping to defend and rear their young. Young males remain with the group, while females move away to find a new group, and thus avoid inbreeding. They make nests from twigs, and hide them in dense vegetation. The systematics of Old World babblers have long been contested. During much of
176-525: The other being the Australasian babblers of the family Pomatostomidae (also known as pseudo-babblers). Morphological diversity is rather high; most species resemble " warblers ", jays or thrushes . This group is among those Old World bird families with the highest number of species still being discovered . Timaliids are small to medium birds. They have strong legs, and many are quite terrestrial. They typically have generalised bills, similar to those of
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#1732852391008192-614: The relationships between the genera. These were determined in the same study by Cai and collaborators. Timalia – chestnut-capped babbler Dumetia – babblers (2 species) Mixornis – tit-babblers (5 species) Macronus – tit-babblers (2 species) Cyanoderma – babblers (8 species) Spelaeornis – wren-babblers (8 species) Melanocichla – laughingthrushes (2 species) Pomatorhinus – scimitar babblers (10 species) Erythrogenys – scimitar babblers (6 species) Stachyris – babblers (13 species) The family as currently constituted includes 58 species divided into
208-567: The seventy-six groups of plants he recognised in his tables families ( familiae ). The concept of rank at that time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera , which is far from how the term is used today. In his work Philosophia Botanica published in 1751, Carl Linnaeus employed the term familia to categorize significant plant groups such as trees , herbs , ferns , palms , and so on. Notably, he restricted
224-541: The use of this term solely within the book's morphological section, where he delved into discussions regarding the vegetative and generative aspects of plants. Subsequently, in French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille was used as a French equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo naturalis ). In zoology ,
240-415: Was a badly resolved polytomy with Old World warblers and white-eyes . As the typical warblers (genus Sylvia ) grouped with some presumed timaliids (such as the fulvettas ), it was suggested that some Sylviidae should be moved to the Timaliidae. The phylogenetic relationships between Timaliidae and other families was determined in a molecular phylogenetic study by Tianlong Cai and collaborators that
256-478: Was published in 2019. It is shown in the cladogram below: Pycnonotidae – bulbuls (167 species) Sylviidae – sylviid babblers (32 species) Paradoxornithidae – parrotbills and myzornis (38 species) Zosteropidae – white-eyes (152 species) Timaliidae – babblers (58 species) Pellorneidae – ground babblers (68 species) Alcippeidae – Alcippe fulvettas (10 species) Leiothrichidae – laughingthrushes and allies (133 species) The cladogram below shows
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