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Acridotheres

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Kingdom
  
Scientific name
  
Acridotheres

Phylum
  
Chordata

Rank
  
Genus

Family
  
Sturnidae

Mass
  
Common myna: 120 – 140 g

Higher classification
  
Starling

Order
  
Passerine

Acridotheres Jungle myna Wikipedia

Lower classifications
  

Cheeky birds in thailand indian myna acridotheres tristis koh samui


Acridotheres is a genus of starlings, the "typical" mynas, which are tropical members of the family Sturnidae. This genus has representatives in tropical southern Asia from Iran east to southern China and Indonesia. Two species have been introduced widely elsewhere. The common myna has been introduced to South Africa, Israel, Hawaii, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and the crested myna to the Vancouver region of British Columbia.

Contents

Acridotheres Acridotheres tristis

The Acridotheres mynas are generally dark or dull birds with and fluted calls like most starlings; the sexes are similar. They walk rather than hop, and have modifications to the skull and its muscles for open bill probing. They resemble the hill mynas (Gracula) with which they often co-occur, in having large white or buff wing patches which are obvious in flight and in some also naked areas on the head, but differ in that only the head plumage is glossy, and the underparts tend to be paler. The naked head patches are different in arrangement. Acridotheres mynas are also much more terrestrial than Gracula.

Acridotheres taxo4254 Acridotheres javanicus

They have bowing courtship displays, whereas Gracula has no visual display. They lay unmarked pale blue eggs.

Several species have frontal crests which become covered with pollen when the birds take nectar from flowers, and may play a role in pollination.

Acridotheres AvianDiversity Bank Myna Acridotheres ginginianus Latham 1790

Like most starlings, the Acridotheres mynas are fairly omnivorous, eating fruit, nectar and insects.

Mynah bird acridotheres tristis little mynah baby bird making noise


Systematics

Acridotheres wwwhbwcomsitesdefaultfilesstyleslargeapub

Despite being both called "mynas", the Acridotheres mynas are closer related to a group of mainly terrestrial starlings from Eurasia, such as the common starling, and also African ones like the Lamprotornis glossy-starlings. Among these, they are among the larger and duller species; they seem to be one of the major groups to evolve most recently. Apparently, they all arose from ancestors which arrived from Central Asia and adapted to more humid conditions in the Tropics. They presumably were isolated in about their current range when the evolutionary radiation to which they belonged - including the wattled starling and the Sturnia species - was fragmented by desertification at the start of the Early Pliocene, as Earth turned towards the last ice age 5 million years ago.

Acridotheres Acridotheres Discover Life

The taxonomy of this group is complex, and other authorities differ considerably in which species they place in this genus, and in the species boundaries within Acridotheres.

The following is a list of "core" Acridotheres species in taxonomic order:

Acridotheres Acridotheres tristis Common Myna Discover Life mobile

  • Great myna, Acridotheres grandis
  • Crested myna, Acridotheres cristatellus
  • Javan myna, Acridotheres javanicus
  • Pale-bellied myna, Acridotheres cinereus
  • Jungle myna, Acridotheres fuscus
  • Collared myna, Acridotheres albocinctus
  • Bank myna, Acridotheres ginginianus
  • Common myna, Acridotheres tristis
  • The taxonomy of this group is complex, and other authorities differ considerably in which species they place in this genus, and in the species boundaries within Acridotheres. Several species from the paraphyletic Sturnus assemblage are often placed in Acridotheres. Indeed, as more recent studies suggest (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006, Zuccon et al. 2006), this is most likely correct.

  • Vinous-breasted starling, Sturnus burmannicus
  • Black-winged starling, Sturnus melanopterus
  • Two others (red-billed starling, Sturnus sericeus & white-cheeked starling, Sturnus cineraceus) are probably basal in the group and might even be closer to Sturnia. The relationships of the white-faced starling are more unclear, but it is generally not held to be close to the present genus.

    References

    Acridotheres Wikipedia


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